


dusky visor

by angryandbi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Blindfolds, Dirty Talk, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Naked Female Clothed Male, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Rough Sex, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, and then helmet comes off, helmet stays on, idk how to write action scenes, is it obvious i'm writing for a universe idrk, ofc touch-starved din
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29037078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angryandbi/pseuds/angryandbi
Summary: mando works alone. until he considers otherwise when a waitress on this humdrum, backwater planet puts her livelihood on the line for him and the kid. he makes amends for costing the girl her job by offering her another.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Reader, Din Djarin & You, Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, The Mandalorian & You, The Mandalorian/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> picks up from s1ep4 and deviates from canon
> 
> chapter warnings: fear, brief mention of death, no smut yet :-( (probs next chapter tho)

“Keep an eye on the kid.”

The dark cadence of the modulated voice commands for your attention and you find that the Mandalorian has risen from his seat. It’s just in time for you to catch the credit he tosses at you as he directs for the door, following the strongly built woman with the Rebellion tattoos who was sitting across the common house but has now also disappeared from her table.

“U—uh, yeah, sure, of course,” you sputter in trying to keep up. When you finally register the heaviness that sits in your palm, you rush to utter a word of thanks for his generous compensation. But, the word leaves your tongue without purpose because he has already fully left the structure.

He had questioned about the woman earlier while you took his order of just one bowl of bone broth for the child. Very much being a wall of metal himself, he didn’t reveal much – quite literally, he revealed _nothing_. So, you’re just left to speculate that it’s none of your business whether he’s connecting with a contact or removing a suspicious pursuer.

Pocketing the credit, you blink back at the child. He blinks back at you, quietly and compliantly still in his seat and not making a fuss for his departing… dad?

He’s awfully toad-like. His tiny head shouldn’t be able to support such abysmally beady eyes and wide-stretching ears. But— _Maker_ , somehow, he’s cute.

Is that what the Mandalorian looks like under his beskar as well?

And that’s just how long you’ll entertain the idea for before you turn for the kitchen to retrieve the broth that was ordered for him, trusting that the quality of urgence in the guardian’s leave meant that he won’t be gone for long.

You quickly find out the betrayal in the kid’s apparent obedience, because in returning with the porringer of soup, his seat has somehow gotten rid of him. “Kid?” you call out, alarm causing you to ungracefully drop the bowl on the table as you dart your eyes around the pairs of feet in the area in search of green.

It doesn’t take long, and you thank the Maker for the child’s proportional legs as his tiny stature had only gotten him a few loth-cat leaps away. Your fright isn’t substituted by relief just yet, because now you’re diving for him in panic of whatever he’s managed to put in his mouth that probably shouldn’t be in his mouth.

Taking him up into your arms, you tear the live gecko from his lips and, left unscathed enough, it scurries away after your toss-aside. “No—okay—wow, I’m not sure the Mandalorian would be happy with you eating that, kiddo.” The pad of your thumb sweeps across the corner of his sulking frown to make sure no dirt from the reptile’s grimy mitts had transferred.

He coos sadly.

“You’re just hungry, eh?” you reason with his chasing for the crawling critter. A glance at the doorway tells you that his armoured parent hasn’t returned, and a simple bone broth will probably not be enough to satisfy the child. The house’s proprietor, your boss, wouldn’t like to see you caretaking someone’s baby instead of tending to the visitors either.

\---

The Mandalorian leads the ex-shock trooper back to his table for a conversation after figuring out – admittedly, through a wasteful brawl – that neither of them are out for each other’s necks. His strides die halfway, though, when he sees that the seat isn’t occupied by the soup-sipping green bundle he is expecting. The server-made-temporary-sitter is nowhere to be found either.

His steps start up again, a stern march this time as he calculatedly veers to follow the stature-fitting footprints tracked by his visor’s display. It takes him to a storage closet in the back of the common house.

You jump in your seat on the stool, and the child in your lap jumps with you when the door kicks open with a thunder. The scare replicates ten-folds when you find yourself staring at the abyssal end of the barrel of a blaster, which is almost as antagonizing as the towering Mandalorian that looms behind it.

Your hands fly up in a wide-open splay on either side of your head, dropping all its contents and not even taking the risk of reaching down to help the kid that’s grappling for balance while half dangling from the platform of your thighs.

“I—I’m sorry,” you immediately surrender, eyes and mouth gaping as you’re prepared to hand over your liberty. “H-he seemed hung—hungry. For more than just broth. I took him— _snuck_ him back here. To give him some of… my snacks.”

Stars. No word of mouth could ever summarize with gossip the exact fear that comes from being at the receiving end of a Mandalorian’s gun. And no stream of water could ever be endless enough to quench the aching drought that’s colonizing your throat now.

The visor that’s just as impenetrable as the beskar that encases it tilts down at the pieces of dried meat that scatters around your feet. Then, to the child that, after regaining a stable seat again, seemingly couldn’t be bothered with more than grabbing the loose bit of jerky that caught on your knee in its fall. He hums delightedly as he brings it to his mouth.

The Mandalorian dimly sighs with admission as he reholsters his blaster. The tension in his limbs deflate, but you don’t yet dare mimic the same relief, keeping your hands right where they are. Only when he confesses an apology do you reluctantly let your arms drop.

“I… thought you took him. Away. From me.” Expression concealed and voice filtered, you’re disarmed by the permission to receive the guilt that laces his low-toned words. “Sorry for scaring you. Thank you,” he squats and starts to palm the dried meat he forced you to fling, “for looking after him.”

You frantically shake your head, setting the child down on the floor before rushing to kneel and claim the rest of the loose food before he could. You’ve yet to find a voice somewhere behind your quivering lips to explain that there is no need, and it was no bother.

The helmet lifts and pauses on you for a moment, like he wants to explain himself. Though, nothing more than a ghost of a breath sieves out of his modulator.

“It’s okay,” you amaze yourself with the whisper you’re able to find while feeling wholly arrested under the close fix of the dusky band of his visor. But you feel the need to relieve him of the unnecessary obligation he feels. “I sh-shouldn’t have taken him away like that. Anyone would be just as protective over their kid.”

You conveniently leave out your speculation that the two of them must be on the run, being pursued. You’re familiar with the callous mercenary and bounty hunter reputation of those belonging to his Creed. But his eager suspicion of another patron as soon as he sits down? His hostility and keenness to pull a blaster on someone he left his kid under the watch of just minutes ago? Especially on this humdrum, backwater skug hole of a planet?

The Mandalorian’s words take a rest as well, his reply being only a slight nod that you interpret as his unobtrusive word of thanks for your understanding. It takes all of your cognitive consciousness not to flinch when he holds his closed fist in front of you. You glance in question at the glassy black intersecting his helmet, as if your distorted reflection in it could provide an answer. But, you quickly realize his intention and hold out your palms to catch the bits of dried meat he picked up. Speech leaps from your mouth in hopes of diverting him from how poorly you had stifled your fright.

“Will you be staying? I hope I haven’t made a bad impression,” you brush the pant at your knees as you follow suit and rise to your feet. “Sorgan’s peaceful. Friendly. Kid would like it here.”

The toad child, now held in beskar arms, babbles with hands stretching out in an appeal for another piece of jerky. You give it to him, the strip of meat gripped between just two of your fingers requiring the hold of both of his tiny mitts. A smile melts on your face at the adorable disparity. The pads of your digits soothe over the top of his head in affection.

“You haven’t,” the deep tenor and static of the Mandalorian’s conservative words reels your gaze back up to the dusky band over his eyes.

 _Does his irises reflect the same dark timbre as his voice?_ you wonder.

“I think we’ll be staying for a while.”

A summer starts in your chest at the thought of being able to run into him and the kid again.

\---

You’ve seen them in the common house a handful of times in the last few weeks.

 _“Kid seems to like you,”_ had been Mando’s unprompted reasoning for his frequenting of this place, where he couldn’t even enjoy a flagon of spotchka due to the very public nature of the house that kept his helmet tightly sealed to his neck. That just meant that later that day, you would let the pair leave with a large jug of the fresh brew from the kitchen to enjoy in private. On the house, to the anger and disbelief of your boss once she found out.

 _“Get in line, kiddo,”_ you jested back at the child who you’ve in fact easily grown fond of, gently scratching the back of his ear and earning yourself a coo as he sipped his usual porringer of broth.

The Mandalorian hadn’t let falter his nearly wordless yet daunting presence the entire time you’ve known him in the last month. Yet, it’s why you found it so easy to take pride in him finally sharing some details with you, no matter how trivial – the child is his foundling, and they are staying at a nearby krill-farming village for the time being. Other than that, you’ve allowed yourself to entertain the idea that maybe, you’ve become a person of trust to the hardened warrior, who would choose you to query about neighbouring markets and where he could find certain supplies.

It may have been all you got from him, but word travels fast around here too due to the nature of this tight knit community – him and the ex-Rebel Cara Dune took on the job of taking down the Klatooinian tribe that’s been terrorizing the locals.

Admirable, by the way. But admittedly detrimental to your progressing craft of curbing your growing crush on him, a man you have not and will not see the face of. Ever.

The conquest of the raiders had been the most action this community has heard of in a while. And it was the only action they’d get for a while more, you thought. Until today, when a lofty silhouette in a black fur coat and round iron hood walks in and takes a seat at a table. The metal mask covering his face and snout tells you he’s a Kubaz, which in of itself isn’t suspicious. You’ve served all kinds of visitors from everywhere at your time in the common house. But it is the sniper rifle strapped to his back and the steady blinking red light in his pocket that’s got you alarmed.

A bounty hunter. Within the vicinity of a bounty, given the flashing of the tracking fob. A foreign sight on this planet.

You’re gutted. Your breath is held captive in your throat. With everything you’ve pieced together so far, your instincts tell you he’s here for the Mandalorian—for the _child_. The foreboding rifle he’s equipped himself with tells you his intentions aren’t to temporarily incapacitate anyone either. No, his intentions appear to be much more _terminal_.

You stand frozen behind the bar in the heart of the common house, paralysis stealing your limbs away from the cleaning and the drink serving it had been doing. Your mind races hysterically and it dawns a motion sickness on you despite your still figure.

The proprietor stops by his table, likely with a question to interest him with some broth or spotchka. A nod from the patron sends your boss on her heels towards you. She holds up a finger, “One flagon,” she orders your service for the guest. “Oy, did you hear me?” her fingers snap by your temple once she’s in front of you and you still haven’t broken from the distant gawk on your face.

Had he stopped here after his travels for a quick refresher before he hunts for the kid? If so, you’ve got very little time then, assuming you can even remotely mirror the same agility as a bounty hunter.

You don’t allow even a second to exist between your gut feeling of what you need to do and the race in your feet that acts on it. The proprietor’s voice that barks your name and a demand for an explanation eludes your register entirely as you’re darting through patrons in a haste to depart. Amidst your hysteric sprint out the back door, all that you can distinguish is the acid that climbs the back of your throat and the violent drumming of your heart like it’s being wrongfully imprisoned in your chest.

You pray to Maker the Kubaz hasn’t caught on yet, and that you’ll reach the duo before he does. You pray to Maker that you’ll reach the duo before he reaches _you_.

\---

“Mando!” you desperately call to the air as you finally breach the perimeter of the village on scuttling feet that fights off any feelings of tire. The cap of your throat burns from repeatedly swelling your volume to its all-out capacity, in hopes of extending its reach to whichever nook the beskar soldier and his foundling resides. “Where is the Mandalorian? Have you seen the Mandalorian and his kid?” you urgently appeal for help to the puzzled farmers and villagers that pass you by in your gallop.

You follow the general direction of their pointing fingers, until Mando gives your voice a rest by stepping out of his lodging hut at the sound of your panicked voice a few barns down. The transient relief of you somehow making it in time brings you to your knees once you’re in front of him. Your unstinting running collapses your legs that burn to the bone until you fall forward onto your palms. Your fingers clench the soil under it in agony.

“What happened?” the Mandalorian doesn’t change the pitch of his tone but delivers just the same magnitude of gravity. He drops to a knee to find your eyes when he catches you at the shoulders to hold your head up.

You’re panting like your lungs are terrified of being deprived like that ever again. “Hunter…” is all your chest can gather. But staring back at the black of Mando’s visor rather than the goggles of the antagonistic Kubaz kindles a brief solace within you that fuels your speech further. “Bounty hunter. In the common house. Tracking fob. I think he’s here for the kid. Could find us any minute now.”

He takes only the lifetime of a breath to dwell on your words before he’s already moving. You expect that he’s accustomed to some heavy lifting from all his years of donning the dense beskar armor, yet you’re still bewildered when he gets you to your feet and puts all your weight against him with such fluidity. You’re grateful, nonetheless, because your body refuses to withhold from processing the exhaustion any longer.

He helps you and your rickety limbs inside of his hut. Carefully, he rests you onto his cot in the corner. “Wait here. Gonna get the kid.”

The drape covering the doorway flutters with his leave.

And then you’re alone, seated in the calm and quiet where your breaths can finally come down to home in your chest. You’re sheltered in what’s been his living quarters for the past few weeks, and though he’s not one for any concept of personalization, you sense the stain of his presence on everything. And you finally feel a fraction of safety, security. A fraction, but coming to you like the first drink in a drought.

You had been _terrified._ You were terrified they would already be dead by the time you arrived. Or that one fleeting turn of your head in the middle of your wild sprinting and you’d find that the Kubaz’s sniper rifle was zeroing in on your back. But you hadn’t allowed yourself to cry yet, hadn’t allowed for that fear to capture you yet because before anything else, you had to make sure you got here first. It’s all catching up to you now, though. Your hands currently shake, not from wear but from the vile apprehension of being chased, of being too late. Your lips quiver and your eyes mist because it’s not over yet, not until the Mandalorian or the Kubaz find the other first before being found themselves.

Soon, a drag of the curtain aside reveals an iron silhouette at the door with a bundle in his arm. Green ears peek out from under the thick vambrace holding him as he fusses in protest of being taken away from his play with the other village kids. The crankiness subsides when he’s slipped from the rigid, armoured clutch and into your warm, supple embrace instead. He’s glad to see you, not understanding the direness of the situation that had actually brought you here.

“Mando, he had a sniper rifle.” The tremble in your tenor renders you hardly audible even to the wind. But he hears, because a quick dip of his helmet says he understands you’re telling him to be careful with the distance leverage the Kubaz has over him.

“Stay here. Don’t leave for anything, and don’t let the kid out of your sight.”

You would never think to answer with anything other than the affirmative to that dusky baritone that punctuates with finality. You hold the child close to your chest, lips sealed by a gritting jaw, so the only response you can produce is a firm nod and a look of courage in your dewy eyes.

His helmet stays fixed on you for a second, still wordless, but you’re wondering if it is in fact your hysterics that had feigned his voice in your head, saying, “It’ll be okay. I’ll take care of it.”

And then he’s gone.

The kid soon starts to read that something’s wrong – his dad isn’t here, and the lady that is normally serving him bone broth is instead wiping her tears and nervously pacing. He mirrors your anxiety, fussing when you try to settle him in his hovering pram. So, you keep him in your arms, trying to occupy him by feeding him some of the bread and dried roots Mando has, which you try to nibble along yourself to convince the child that it’s suppertime.

The sun sets without the Mandalorian’s return.

The child is finally calm in your lap as you sit back on the cot, resting your tired bones and letting the frenzied overthinking decay to a numb lull. Because all you can really do is just _wait_. It really hasn’t even been that long. You have already decided that he’s a Mandalorian, and they’re hard to kill from what you’ve heard. The village is bordered by wide and dense stretches of forest that he has to comb through too.

It’s like the child knows to comfort you now, because even with dry eyes and quiet lips, your expressions still weigh with uncertainty. He hums with a quality of consolation as his tiny fingers are raking through the tips of your hair. The curve of your palm caresses the back of his head, thankful for the reminder that you’re not here alone.

But eventually, life returns to your face in a rush. Though, it’s not the kind of vivacity the child is looking for, because fret pools your irises and sits you up straight in alert. On the other side of the door’s curtain, you faintly hear troubled gasps and mutters as quick feet carries villagers back into the safety of their homes. Certainly not a greeting for the Mandalorian guest they’ve already welcomed and have grown accustomed to by now.

Instincts invading your movement before anything else, you’re already on your feet and hastily packing the kid into his pod. Slapping the band on the side hits a button that rolls the top edge of the shield down until it seals shut. And then the breach of footsteps at the doorway – not as hefty or ringing with steel like Mando’s – spins you around. Your jaw pulls taut, abhorring that you had guessed correctly when you’re opposite a Kubaz with a rapidly flashing tracking fob hooked on his fingers. He’s poised his rifle straight out in front of him, the front of the barrel used to push aside the drape for his entry before it’s locked in on you.

There is not a spot in your consciousness that knows how to get out of this situation – you’re undeniably cornered. You don’t even steep too long on what this could mean for the Mandalorian – his whereabouts and whether his current state reflects life or demise. Because the only concept that is systematically claiming every thread of thought and every string of muscle is _the child_.

You’re standing in front of the pram, putting your body between the hunter and his bounty. Even with a thunderous heartbeat rocking to the farthest reaches of your extremities, you stand straight, arms firmly by your side to expand the broad of your shoulders the most it’ll go. You are irrefutably no match, but you hold yourself at a countless distance away from forfeiting before you do everything you physically can for the kid.

But you don’t have to.

Thank the _Maker_ , you don’t have to.

The Kubaz jolts forward until his face collides with the ground. Behind him stands the Mandalorian, holding up a blaster to where the back of the Kubaz had been.

Mando reholsters his blaster and takes a step towards you. “Are you okay?”

In the time you’ve known him, he has never been one to employ much colour in his voice. And yet now, he delivers sincerity almost like an earnest song in just three words.

You’re in a daze, unsure of how to progress past the jarring transition of watching a fatality unfold right in front of you from nearly being a casualty yourself. But you nod.

“And the kid?”

Lagging limbs turn you in your spot to press the button on the side of the pod that opens the shield. The child hums with curiosity at the body on the floor. You follow his gaze and finally register the smell of charred flesh.

“Is he…?”

You _knew_ he was dead. But you ask as if verbalizing it will help you process such an intangible concept as being next to a laying corpse.

Mando doesn’t answer, instead settles a gloved hand on your shoulder with a faint push that urges you to sit back down on the cot. He sees your quavering. “I’ll take care of it.” Words so low and soft, his helmet’s modulator could hardly render it beyond a neat string of static. “But it’s late. Too dark for you to try to get home now. I suggest you get some rest here for tonight. Then I’ll see to it that you get home safe in the morning.”

It’s startling. The Mandalorian is now speaking enough to fill the silence that you create, as you’re the one who is scarcely reacting with more than just agreeing bobs of your head.

You catch the sulk before it surfaces on your lips when he moves his hand off you. After being so cold and so unsure for so long, the closeness of him and his warmth was comforting.

“You…” he starts, the solid band of his visor unmoving from its peer down on you, and you’re wondering if his gaze _looks_ as strong as you presently _feel_ it to be. “Thank you for taking care of the kid.” Mando’s words fall slow, like he holds onto each word for a bit before he lets it go as it paints the reminder of how you put yourself in front of the child like that. “I’m sorry I got you involved. And put you in danger.”

 _Maker_. What response could you possibly give that’ll hold up to one as profound as that?

“You kidding? This has been the most exciting my life has ever been,” you jest with volume that hardly breaks the air between the two of you. Because how are you supposed to explain around the fact that you’ve grown some sort of fondness for the father-foundling pair in the fleeting time you’ve known them? And you don’t even _know_ them. You’d look like a fool.

At least you are sobering from the haze in your mind.

“Mando, I can’t stay here. You need to rest too.” Voice already faint, you soften your tone the most it’ll go as to not reject the Mandalorian, but to recognize that he would likely only get sufficient sleep if he was helmetless, which could only happen in the guestless privacy of his own place.

“I won’t sleep tonight. To make sure no one else has come to this planet with the same idea as him.”

 _Him_ being the Kubaz bounty hunter that Mando is now bending down towards to gather the arms of, before heaving the body into a sling over his shoulder. And then he leaves to _take care of it_ , whatever that means – you’re not eager to inquire, just keen to move past this whole situation.

He doesn’t take long, and when he returns, he hands you a blanket and tells you to take the cot. Your mouth opens with protest, with propositions of compromise, but you figure it futile to argue with a Mandalorian, especially since he’s already making himself comfortable sitting in a corner by the door. So, you take the cooing child into your gently swaying arms that persuade him with sleep.

“We…” his helmet tilts down at his lap like he’s about to deliver some bad news. And he does. “…Can’t stay here after tomorrow. If one found us today, more of them with tracking fobs will be coming.”

You swallow. You peer down at the kid, his lids heavy, drowsiness thankfully stealing him from perceiving your grief. Ghosting the tips of your fingers back and forth on the crown of his head lulls him further, while you savour it as your last few moments together.

“Where will you go?” you quietly inquire.

“I’m,” a sigh filters through his helmet, “not sure yet.”

There’s a pang in your heart, hearing his disappointment of having yet to find a suitable place for the kid’s protection.

“The possibilities are endless,” you try to colour your whisper with the optimism of a nearly infinite galaxy.

The child sleeps now, and he feels so warm against your chest that you are far from willing to get rid of it. So, you move slowly as you flatten onto your back on the cot, holding him close to you as you move the blanket to drape over both of your bodies.

“I hear Naboo is one of the safest places to be. I’ve read about their mountains and plains; it all sounds gorgeous. The kid will probably like it better than this dull skug hole,” you try not the sound too dreamy, because the last thing you’d want to come off as is _jealous_ of the Mandalorian’s situation. Though, you can’t help but quietly giggle at the thought of how perfectly round this toad child is built to just tumble down one of Naboo’s hills.

“I take it you haven’t done much travelling outside Sorgan yourself.”

You almost scoff at the idea, having been here since you first saw light with no real opportunity to leave despite your _yearning_ to. “What can I say? Sorgan loves me right where I am.”

“Then,” his hushed baritone through the modulator still holds a decadence to it, “can the kid and I expect to find you here if we ever happen to visit again?”

His unexpected words turn your head towards him, only to find that his visor is angled and he’s no longer looking directly at you.

“You know, for some broth. For the kid.”

You straighten your head back because his visor display probably has functions for night visibility, so the dark can’t save you from the stupid smile that pulls at your face. “Ah, you’ll easily find me in my small village. But after I ran out like that today, I don’t think my employment is any longer welcomed at the common house.”

You conveniently leave out the anger you had already enthused in your boss by letting the two of them walk away with a huge brew of spotchka without a single credit to pay for it.

“You—” his volume climbs the slightest in disbelief, “you lost your job because of today?”

A feigned chuckle of yours attempts to stop his tension from building. “Don’t give yourself too much credit, Mando.” You don’t know where your boldness is coming from. Maybe it’s to overcompensate for how flustered you actually are. “I wasn’t going to let myself stay there much longer. Was getting tired of breaking up fighting rings that got out of hand. I’m not built for that.”

He goes quiet, for what feels like a while as you’re marinating in silent uncertainty, until you start to question if he had fallen asleep up against the wall.

But really, he’s thinking. He’s thinking about how belonging the kid seems as he’s slumbering in your chest, how he takes to you so naturally. And how you had put yourself on the line to protect him, despite knowing nothing of him, of his situation, or of his Mandalorian guardian. Maker knows he needs help caring for and keeping the kid safe too. But most of all, he’s thinking about how he doesn’t feel ready to welcome the idea of never knowing you again.

“Does that mean you’re in the market for another job?”


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mando had always worked alone. and then he found someone to trust.  
> 
> 
> \-- dinner, a haircut, and existential dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: mainly domestic fluff and yearning, minor fear + action/violence, and then smut :-) fingering, thoughts about cum eating

“Huu?”

An innocent murmur brings your peer over to the child in the copilot seat behind you. He’s trained forward, eyes on something next to you. His tiny fingers outstretch from tiny arms in front of him, extending to where his eager gaze couldn’t reach. You follow his ogle to understand exactly why his syllable had carried more of a sweeter tune than usual.

A small sigh falls from your lips as you straighten up from your bend over the flight console. “ _No_ , you womp rat. You know that’s not a toy.”

“Huu.” His gently sulking tone is _awfully_ convincing. His wee digits still wave readily for the metal knob of the lever on the board.

You turn back to the nav comp before his big eyes glisten at you and help his cause. “Don’t _huu_ me. Mando will get mad. He’ll be back any minute now.” You focus on setting the coordinates for takeoff, so you don’t hear another coo that’ll all too easily crumble your poise.

But you do.

And it works.

You grumble in complaint. Not entirely at the child, but more so at how easily you falter. An exhale of defeat billows from your nose as you begrudgingly unscrew the spherical handle from its pole. But your tenor softens just as you meet the sunshine in the squished face that giggles at his prize. “Just until Mando gets back, okay, my sweet?”

You tell yourself that the happy babble he responds with is his agreeing promise. Regardless, the honey in his pitch reminds you how winding and trying the road is to saying “no” to the kid. You figure you’re safe for a little while longer anyway – Mando is occupied with storing away the provisions and supplies the two of you managed to find here on Sanctuary. Turning back to the console, you confirm that the navigation is set for takeoff.

You never thought you’d thank the Maker for making Sorgan so peaceful, so quiet… so _boring_. Because it cultured you a wandering and curious mind that kept your nose buried in readings that painted pictures of the galaxy – or at least, the _shell_ of it – that your eyes couldn’t see for themselves. It had taught you enough so that you weren’t a complete stranger to some of the controls of the flight board when you stood in front of it for the first time. Watching Mando steer the Crest for the last month as you sit in the copilot’s seat has familiarized you enough to know how to ready the coordinates before Mando comes to take the ship off.

The Mandalorian had taken you on as a hire of sorts. He might’ve felt bad for being any kind of constituent in the loss of your job, but he must’ve also recognized the demand in taking care of a child if he was willing to break his streak of working in solitude. You’d like to think you’ve proven yourself to be worth the employ too, keeping an eye on the kid and keeping him entertained while Mando does maintenance on the Crest, on his armory, or acquiring munitions. And you’re good at it too. Though, he hadn’t set the bar too high himself, being a man that’s nearly as unsolvable and rigid as his beskar.

The three of you have otherwise been laying low the last month, hopping from planet to planet, finding whatever supplies and provisions you guys can gather, doing whatever repairs and housekeeping that were necessary, and staying at each place for no more than a week at a time. He’s kept himself from looking for work, just for a little while longer to keep his profile covert after the unwelcomed encounter on Sorgan.

Today, Mando chose Sanctuary as the place to stay for the next few days, maybe even a week if Guild-free conditions allow it. You’re both now preparing to cruise to a more remote place on the planet to set up camp, after having docked near a marketplace where you found some food to last the next little while. You even managed to find a decent enough sleeping bag at one of the street vendors as well. And thank the Maker for it too – the scraggly travel blanket and pillow you brought along from home can only do so much to cushion the unforgiving iron that is the floor of the hull every night.

Actually, on your first night on the Razor Crest, Mando handed over his bunk to be your dedicated sleeping quarters. He didn’t ask, he didn’t offer – he _asserted_ that the cot would be yours to sleep on. The authority in that raven baritone alone might as well had taken you by the shoulders and thrown you in there itself.

But—fucking _stars_ —in that bunk, you existed immeasurably far from sleep. How could you rest, when nothing could’ve possibly prepared you for the inundation that came with being wholly swathed in his scent? That dense beskar of his had so far only allowed you to acquaint with a fleeting ghost of his musk. But in his bunk, where he must have slept armour-less night in and night out, you were suddenly intimate with the complexity of it that dyes the sheets – the rich earthiness softened by a quiet sweetness.

You felt like an intruder. Mando is covered from head to toe so that no one can know even an inch of his skin. Mando speaks with a distance so that no one can know even his name. So then, to be completely entangled in this private detail about him felt like a crime.

His scent was _delectable_ , though, you quickly realized in a pause to your self-chastising. To say that it was intoxicating was being prudent. Having known him only by the characteristic tempo of his vernacular had already barraged your imaginings with the strong, arresting features that might’ve matched the low, dusky tones of his voice. So for your limbs to be sinking deep into the decadent quality of his fragrance then, your mind got ambitious in wondering how bared these sheets have seen him. It flourished a summer in your chest, so thrashing that it climbed the heat to your ears until your temples quietly yet tirelessly drummed along to it. To your detriment, the fever didn’t just climb. It trickled down until you felt an exacting tug between your thighs.

 _Fuck_ , is that how easily set off you are? Merely by the residuals of his musk alone? _No_ , you convinced yourself, you just needed to pee. And stars, did you need some kriffing air too.

As soon as you opened the door of the bunk, you wanted to gasp in the cool, unscented air of the hull like a prayer to an anxious sinner. The tranquil drone of hyperspace was already doing wonders for the swelter in your thoughts.

You climbed down carefully in the darkness, beginning your short and straight tread to the fresher. But the dim, scattering glow of the hull’s buttons and controls were nowhere near sufficient enough to warn you of the body on the floor. In front of the ladder leading up to the cockpit, you tripped over a sort of obstruction at the level of your ankle – blanketed, as you felt the brush of wool against your toes.

And the unmodulated _mmrrph_ that responded had you thoroughly stiff after bracing onto the wall to catch yourself. Your gawk that was sloping down from your stumble scarcely made out the silhouette-shaped hills under a fleecy sheet, lying just a step away from your feet. And it confirmed exactly what you were dreading. Your eyes had only traced along the covered length of an arm when coursing panic tore you away before you could reach the shoulder, straightening you right up and nestling your face up on the wall, so hastily that it was a hair’s breadth away from a panging collision.

Mando was right there. Sleeping on the floor. Without his helmet. _Of course,_ Mando was sleeping on the floor unarmoured. Where else and how else would he be sleeping?

“I—I didn’t—didn’t see anything!” you gasped. Truthfully so, as his blanket had thankfully concealed everything his beskar hadn’t in that moment. But your entire figure felt the gravity of guilt for hearing even an element of his raw, unfiltered voice, no matter how incoherent. You’re sure that it in itself wasn’t… _illegal_ , but it sure felt like a close relative to betrayal.

A sorry excuse of an apology tumbled from your lips, the fluster dimming its volume to a pale whisper. Even though your back was already turned to him and the shadows of the unlit hull were inaccessible anyway, you still clamped a sweaty palm over your eyes and gracelessly hurried back to the safety of the closed bunk.

Perceiving the intimacy of his scent had already felt like a trespass. But then to have nearly seen his skin… and to have nearly seen his _face_ … Maker! You nearly saw his face! You truly felt like a felon then.

The following day, you insisted on giving his bunk back and taking the floor of the hull for yourself instead. You left little room for him to disagree, inciting a false need to get up and pee often in the middle of the night, and convincing him to yield unless he wanted more close call run-ins like the night before. You also conveniently left out your certainty about a lack of sleep on a cot that was so saturated by his rivetingly sweet smell.

Your sleep had seen a significant improvement since that first restless, shame-ridden night. Tonight will probably see yet another advance, now that you have a proper sleeping bag to cover any exposed toes and pad the growing ache on your lower back.

“Closing the ramp,” Mando comes on over your commlink as the groans and hisses of the Crest vibrates the panels under your feet. “Heading up now.”

“Copy. Nav is set,” you mirror his stagnant tone and feed it into the device on your wrist, smothering the wide eyes and hurried hands – that snatches the metal knob back from the kid – from colouring your voice enough to rouse suspicion.

You quickly twist the sphere back on its handle before scooping the kid up and replacing him with yourself in the copilot’s seat. The cockpit door slides open for Mando’s entry just as you’re settling the child onto your lap and quieting his sad mewls with gentle rubs to the back of his head.

“It’s not a toy, you know.”

His unprompted claim startles you and pauses your hands from buckling you and the kid to the seat. Mando stops behind the pilot’s chair, the tilt of his helmet already trained in on the offending lever. Maker, how could he tell right away?

“What are you talking about?” you feign innocence with a volume dim enough to eclipse any quality of deceit that might peek through.

“It’s not screwed on properly.” Mando takes his seat before he reaches to fix the slanted metal knob on its pole.

“Huh, that’s weird.” You apparently decide your charade is still a safe place.

“You _gave_ it to him.”

“That’s a wild accusation, Mando.”

A sigh sieves through his modulator before he’s flipping switches and pushing buttons on the console that rumbles the ship to life. “Hard to say no to those bright eyes.”

His admission reads like he sympathizes with your passivity towards the child, having also been on the receiving end of the persuasive coos that could melt nerves of steel, to which he wouldn’t meet with much more resistance than you had.

You laugh, silent, as it only falls as breaths from your nose. But Mando doesn’t need the turn of his helmet to translate the characteristic pace of your amusement.

And then he is quiet as he steers the ship in a coast just below the planet’s atmosphere. He is usually quiet when he flies, and you’ve always been comfortable with it, always known reservation to be a faithful quality of his character ever since you served him as a visitor on Sorgan. And he is most familiar when he is flying – this is his home, his element, and you feel the most ease and security in its vicinity.

This is your favourite part.

Not only because you’ve only seen one sky your entire life, so it all comes to you with incalculable awe – the varying hues in every new atmosphere, the perpetual intergalactic stretches that are beyond it, and the arching space-time clouds that hug the ship when in a hyperjump. But the wordlessness of flying is a perfect canvas for the three of you to just _exist_ with each other. It’s where you’re given ample opportunities to learn some of the muted language in his subtle gestures, in the way he carries himself, and where you’d like to think he’s done the same with you.

You hear him most when in the quiet too. Not that Mando rushes to fill the silence or anything, since he exists as a foreigner to the fear of awkward vacuums, unlike everyone else. But these were comfortable times to explain the situation of the unintended father-son pair, who started as a bounty and a bounty hunter, who now have not only the Guild but also Imps out for their necks. Mando had been a foundling too, he shared.

Even as a battle-hardened, enigmatic man of a few words, it was becoming easier and easier for you to foster a deeper perspective into his empathy. And your heart swells at the privilege to do so.

\---

You draw in a gust of crisp, salty air to fill your lungs, almost gluttonously as you’re thrilled by the unfamiliar quality of it. The sounds of lazy waves collapsing onto shore were so engulfing, you could all too easily get lost in its rhythm that blurs the margins between where you ended and the environment started. None of the mild rivers and murky swamps from home could’ve ever prepared you for these entrancing oceans.

Mando had docked the Razor Crest in some woods that neighboured a rocky beach. The three of you have since started a campfire to cook supper on an area of the stone islands that scatter the upper shore. Mando had an iron grate of sorts to lay over the fire for you to place down the fish you bought from the market earlier. It roasts in the middle now, with you and the little toad on your lap sitting against a fallen log across from Mando, who rests against a gentle hill of boulders.

The rising aroma of charring fish teases you of hearty luxury in comparison to the meals of dried meats, dried fruits, and bread that had been routine to space travelling. Sanctuary's vast oceans boast of a lavish fish fauna too, so your tongue waters in anticipation of the juicy tenderness that must live up to such reputation.

Mando takes one of the cooked fish by its skewer and hands it to you. You bring it close to your mouth to blow at the steam that billows from it, a knuckle of your other hand tracing the length of the kid’s ear as a request for patience when he eagerly babbles and grasps for it. You feel the silent and still fix of Mando’s helmet on you as you break off small flakes from the roast and trail it to the kid’s mouth. A bigger chunk is brought to your own lips next, and you sigh in bliss at the fragrant warmth that spreads across your tongue.

You meet what you imagine is Mando’s gaze behind the opaque visor. “What about you?” you’re only loud enough to just barely surpass the vibrant snaps of the flames in between the two of you. You ask because he’s moved the grate off the fire before the fish burns but has failed to take one for himself, unmoving in his seat while you and the child are thoroughly enjoying the feast. Of course, you don’t expect him to take off his helmet and eat it in front of the two of you. Though, you had imagined he would take one and move to the other side of the boulders, where he could have it outside the scope of your view.

“Later,” a low rumble of static delivers his modest, almost drowsy response. “It’s…” the black band traversing the chrome on his face breaks from you and dips to the dances in the fire, “…warm here.”

The once delicious flecks of meat in your mouth suddenly loses some of the colour in its taste when you can’t help but blame yourself a bit.

Since the addition of an extra body on the Crest, Mando has had to eat quickly and in the retreats of unoccupied space on the ship. Normally, you imagine he would just close the kid’s pod with the kid in it for him to briefly slip off his helmet and take his meal. But since you’ve been around, he rarely eats at the same time as you, usually when you and the kid are occupied or sleeping. And when he does, he succinctly leaves to the cockpit if you’re in the hull, or to his bunk if you’re in the cockpit, and momentarily takes his meal there.

But now, you feel the waste in letting the crispy skin of the grilled fish cool to a sog if he’s going to eat it later while you sleep, especially since this is one of the nicer meals he’s been able to get his hands on in a while. And feeling the warm and soothing hues of the campfire that kisses your face, you wonder if his helmet allows him to feel some of it too, from what isn’t reflected off of the encasing steel. Certainly, he’s hindered from taking in the full of the lightly salted breeze that can grow a consoling lull in his mind like it’s presently doing in yours.

You want him to feel all the pleasures you do now – listening to the lively ocean after the last month of reverberating steel walls, sitting in front of real flames instead of the Crest’s declining heat generator, and enjoying the fresh rotisserie rather than stale, dehydrated protein. You want him to take off his helmet and feel it all as it happens now.

The spread of your palm finds the kid’s back, bringing him and holding him close to your chest to warn him of a shift in your seat. The dusk of Mando’s visor follows your motions as you climb to your feet, turn, step over the trunk, and dip back down to sit on the other side of it. You face the ocean now with your back turned to him.

“What’s this about?” Mando finally asks when your movements expire, and you resume feeding the child the last few bits on the skewer rather than recognizably demonstrating your intentions.

“You should eat the fish you cooked, Mando. Before it gets cold,” your voice leaves you only loud enough to breach him without the turn of your head.

There is a little more lag than usual between each of his words when he replies, “That’s not necessary.”

He meets your offer with resistance, but you suspect that you’re correctly reading the question and the reluctance underlying it. You won’t urge him on any further, but you’ll remind him that there’s reliability behind your bid. “I promise I won’t look. I’ll make sure the kid won’t either.”

There’s enough pause for you to set aside the cleaned brochette before swiping the pad of your thumb at the little one’s mouth for crumbs. And then, your ears could’ve tangibly perked at the sound of a considering exhale channeling through a modulator.

“Th… Thank you,” is the last of the quiet, gravelly cadence you’ll hear before a soft _thunk_ lands his helmet on the stone he’s sitting on. A gentle scraping on the iron grate tells you he’s retrieved a speared fish for himself too.

And then a searing rouge dawns on your face. Of course, you meant your offer but—stars, he _took_ it. He took your offer. Which you assume takes a whole lot of trust, because one look over your shoulder and his entire devotion to his Creed evaporates. Not that you’d let that idea exist for long in your thoughts. Not that you could even begin to execute it even if you wanted to, with the way this vibrant drumming in your chest is thoroughly robbing movement from your limbs.

You don’t know a single defining feature of his, not a single inch of skin, or what the raw of his speech sounds like without the filter. But he sits behind you now, face bared for the open air and the back of your head.

So then, you’re thinking.

What set of eyes, nose, lips could possibly live up to match the rich timbre of his voice? And his hair – is it straight, wavy, long, short? Does he even have hair? If not on his head, then on his face? Mando hasn’t demonstrated himself to be one who takes long in the fresher, so does that mean he’s growth some stubble? Maybe even a beard? And his skin – what kind of tone, freckles, moles, scars ornament it?

Not that any of it matters or that you’ll ever come to acquaint with any of it. Not that any of it would even change how clumsy the pace of your heartbeat still gets every time he’s near.

The child has no idea the gravity of the situation or the magnitude of your fluster – his full belly is drawing him deeper and deeper into an unbothered drowsiness. His head nestles against your inner thigh perfectly as he makes a bed of your lap.

And everything is _good_. Mando’s trust for you, your loyalty to him, and both of your guys’ favourite kid – all existing together right here and right now, calm and attuned. And you’re convinced this is home.

\---

“Dank farrik.” A frustrated breath tumbles from your lips.

 _Is that straight?_ You sweep all of your hair back to drape past your shoulders. _Not quite_.

Snip.

_Oh! Almost!_

Snip. Snip.

_Never mind. That made it worse._

“Fuck,” the low, harsh groan hardly makes it past the strict grit of your teeth, and so sits on your tongue heavy and bitter. You slam the pair of scissors down on the brim of the sink, the metal curves of the tool crushing against your rigid fingers on impact.

What a terrible idea you’ve allowed yourself to carry out for too long.

Your hair had grown a little longer than what is comfortable during your last month on the Crest. And when you’re spending most of your days on a ship with a shower situation that’s nowhere close to ideal, you figure shorter hair would be easier to deal with. You’re no stranger to cutting your own hair, but normally, you’d have a more accommodating mirror that wasn’t slightly bigger than just the frame of your head like the one you’re using in the fresher now. You’ve made decent work so far with the front of your hair. It’s the _back_ of your hair that’s currently humbling your premature pride. And you don’t have a friend that’s a hut away to help you keep it even like you would’ve back home.

You look to the kid, watching you in the open fresher from his pram that hovers a few strides away. He blinks at you curiously.

_Yeah, right._

Then you look to Mando standing next to him, visor seemingly also in a curious fix on you.

 _Oh_. How long has he been standing there? You look away immediately, back to your reflection of wide eyes and rose cheeks, telling of how embarrassed you are to have been a flustered spectacle in front of him. You hope that the meet of your gaze had been fleeting enough for the desperation in your irises to elude him. But to your detriment, nothing about you ever escapes Mando.

“Do you need a hand?” he finally asks, seeing that you weren’t going to.

The question shocks you. “What?” you reply like you don’t even know the language he used. You had never anticipated such an… _intimate_ offer to endure past the limits of your mind, so for it to fabricate and then exist in the air between the two of you now was disarming to say the least.

“I mean,” a step brings him closer, “I can help. If you want.”

What does that even mean? What does that even look like? How would it even go about?

“You—what?”

A sigh. “You know, I’ve cut my own hair almost my entire life. I’m the only one that _can_.”

Lagging in your processing function, you’re more caught up on the exempted thought of him having a long mane for hair.

“Why do you think I even _have_ a mirror in the fresher anyway?”

 _Right_. He keeps his helmet on all the time otherwise.

You make a sound that’s more nervous than it is a chuckle at the thought of him existing that close to you, touching your hair, brushing your neck. _Maker_ , you’re being embarrassing and even the preteen version of you could recognize that. So, you self-soothe with a jest that hadn’t sounded as poor in your head as it does when it leaves your mouth.

“Can’t say that means you’re _good_ at haircuts though, Mando, if no one else can see it for themselves other than you.”

You’re anxious to correct yourself – that you’re not saying others _should_ see it.

“Sorry—I don’t mean…”

But you’re too daunted by the shame and your voice goes extinct. Even _you_ aren’t sure what had you meant by it.

Mando thankfully doesn’t seem to be hung up on it, because he approaches until he’s by you. His hand gestures to the scissors nestled between your palm and the sink. “May I?” he requests with a simplicity that doesn’t stray, like he doesn’t know he just set your whole existence ablaze with two modest syllables.

You’re crippled by a sheepishness when you nod and pass it to him. “I didn’t mean—I mean, it’s not like I don’t trust—”

“No,” the leather of his glove squeezes around the metal when he palms the tool, “you’re right. You have no way of knowing if I can do a decent job or not.”

Was that—?

Was that a tease?

His modulated voice had been almost just as monochromatic as habit, but there was a certain slight bite to his words that convince you he just made a light jeer at you. In good humor, like he’s trying to take a bit of the edge off you.

And you tell him it works when an amused grin replaces the nervous twist on your lips.

Your head is turned on your shoulders, watching him with curiosity as to how he’ll maneuver as he grips the scissors snug in the cave of his hand. But then you’re immediately straightening forward when you learn he’s only holding the clippers so tight to free up his fingers that’ll pinch and glide off the glove of his other hand.

 _Of course_ , he’ll work better with nimbler hands without the gloves. You had only caught a glimpse of his wrist, and unsure if that was allowed, you had turned around before you knew any more of him. Even if it was not _not_ allowed, it felt unwelcomed—or at least, you weren’t _welcoming_ it in case it _was_ unwelcomed.

And yet the image stains your mind, leaving no thread of thought untouched. A short-lived glance alone had shared with you the golden hues of his skin that must wrap him from head to toe. The same shade of tan that’s running the length of your hair now as he flattens a section between his two fingers. The same sandy tones that are just scarcely skimming the nape of your neck—

 _Maker_. You’ve just felt the bare of his skin.

You feel stupid for scandalizing such a transient and marginal graze. But the pulses that course through you from limb to limb has you gripping the sink brim in front of you, and you only hope the language of it is much more subtle than the one currently playing in your mind.

Fucking _stars_ , the lack of a tender touch and sincere connection the last month – besides with the kid, who very much may only show you affection because you feed and bathe him – has you foolishly feeling like a celibate fondling a tit for the first time.

Mando lands a clasp on your shoulder to tell you he’s done. Lightly, but with your rickety figure, it nearly knocks you down to your knees.

“You did most of the work yourself. I just cleaned it up.”

You’re a little taken, as the thrash of your indecent thoughts must’ve drowned out the snipping that was taking small fractions off your hair, so you hadn’t even fully registered that he started let alone finished. But you’re thanking the Maker for an end before the fever swathing you could surpass an irreparable point.

“Are you satisfied?” he asks with the kriffing husk in his voice that you so wish was an immodest invitation.

 _Fully?_ Not quite. But of course, he’s only asking about your hair and not the unattended ache in the pit of your stomach.

You wait for him to retrieve his pair of gloves from their sling on the sink’s edge, listening for the squeeze of the leather as he slides them on before you’re twisting your chest to him. Keeping your head turned towards the mirror, you sweep your hair back to regard his work.

“Yeah, you—no, _yeah_ , it looks great!” you grin as you admire the fresh movement of it in the reflection when you run your hand through its foreign length. You wonder just how well he grooms his own hair if he could be this impressive with yours.

Your glance arches back to him, and a thrill threatens to invade you once more when you meet his beskar that stands not even an arm’s length away, now that you know the tones and hues that exists under it. His ebony visor reveals nothing, yet you’re so sure a minute flex of your face could reveal so much to him. So, you’re careful and polished when you carve out the words, “Thanks, Mando,” and the smile that accompanies it.

\---

“If you’re looking for work, have a seat, my friend.”

Both you and Mando pull your sights away from the droid bartender and redirect to a corner of the cantina. A young man puts a face to the voice as he leans back in a booth with his boots propped up on the table. A smug air surrounds him when he introduces himself as Toro Calican, both his words and his body speaking like he’s a fellow seasoned hunter himself.

But you aren’t convinced. And it isn’t even because he is young, or that his boots lack the grime to validate the expert attitude, or that the rest of his gear looks unweathered and rather too pristine – like a little boy impatient to sport his brand-new scout uniform for the first time in front of peers. But after having thoroughly acquainted yourself with Mando’s presence for the last couple months, distinguishing between who’s overcompensating and who’s got nothing to prove is coming easy to you now.

Mando glances at you with a minimal nod of his helmet. You reply with your own slight dip of the head, understanding that he means to say he’ll still be near and keeping an eye on you and the kid in this dimly lit cantina with its hardened patrons, all reading like a violent outbreak couldn’t have been _too_ out of the ordinary. And then he departs from you at the bar to assess the Calican fellow’s proposition.

The three of you find yourselves in a cantina in Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine, after docking the Crest in a hangar at the spaceport. Mando is here to look for work, but had found no help from the droid bartender, aside from the glasses of blue liquid and plate of mystery meat it serves you and the child. You’re not too hungry for anything you can’t exactly identify, but the little green chaos in the hovering pod next to you isn’t daunted, nor will he be slackened by any means of chewing. As Mando approaches the young bounty hunter, you’re tearing the meat up into pieces to encourage the tiny bugger to slow down.

Calican presents a bounty puck on the table and announces the name Fennec Shand that’s associated with it. The title doesn’t come familiar to you, but the way Mando says, "I know the name," doesn't sound too inviting. You don’t hear most of whatever else they’re saying in the far corner of the cantina, but you manage to vaguely capture something along the lines of "elite mercenary" and "top crime syndicates". Words that sit an unpleasant weight on your chest. Words that apparently don’t sit too well on Mando’s tongue either, because he begins to turn and leave the conversation. Maker, this bounty must be impossible if even the hardened Mandalorian is turning it down.

Calican shoots up from his seat, abandoning the prideful approach for a manner that’s more desperate instead. "This is my first job!" he shouts, confirming your – and probably Mando’s – suspicions.

You don't catch the rest of Calican’s plea or Mando’s deciding response, but the rookie must’ve offered a handsome compensation because his face soon erupts into a winning beam before Mando’s resuming back to you.

“He offered me all of the credits for the job,” Mando explains to you on the walk back to the hangar, after paying the droid for the meal and giving Calican a rendezvous. “He needs this one job to get him into the Guild.

“I don’t know, this…” you pause to swallow the char that scales the back of your throat when recollecting all of the intimidating labels that Fennec Shand has been associated with so far. You disguise the recess in your words with the action of plucking the child up from his pram once the three of you climbed the ramp of the Crest. “…this sounds dangerous, Mando.”

“So you’ve little faith in me,” he deadpans, his beskar unmoving as the visor zeroes down on you.

A fluster pulls your figure taut. “No— _no_! That—that’s not—”

A gentle rest of his gloved hand on your shoulder interrupts your turmoil to remind you that he isn’t stranger to a joke. “I’ll be fine. She’s near – shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

His tenor softens a degree that nearly makes you forget what you’re even apprehensive about. The hold he lays on your frame is warm enough to convince you it’s where he belongs.

“Stay here with the kid. Use the e-comm if you need me.”

You swallow and nod, trying to remind yourself that this is what he does, this is his job. And that there’s a reason why there is almost always either fear or awe in the eyes of everyone he passes.

Mando leaves with Toro Calican when he arrives at the hangar half an hour later, as planned.

\---

The sounds of swift footsteps crushing against the sandy dirt nears the entry of the hangar.

“He’s here. Get up.”

You scowl in protest, but you’re given an incentive to do as ordered when the unforgiving and rigid end of a blaster’s barrel presses to the blade of your shoulder. You follow suit to ensure that the gun stays pointed at you and not at the child he claims in his arm.

The rookie hunter must’ve somehow found out the Mandalorian and the child were a target of the Guild, with a much more lavish reward, because he had arrived at the spaceport without Mando or a bounty. Calican had masqueraded his unaccompanied state with the lie that the beskar hunter was much better at wrangling the bounty, and must’ve been just right around the corner himself. It was only to get him close enough to corner you and the kid in the Crest before pulling a gun.

He walks you halfway down the Crest’s ramp at blaster-point now as he holds the child. "Took you long enough, Mando.”

You hate that these very unideal circumstances are serving as an endorsement for the rookie’s patronizing tone. Mando stands at the bottom of the ramp, armed with a blaster poised on Calican, but it’s unserviceable when he uses you and the child to build a shield in front of him.

You meet Mando’s unrevealing visor, while he likely sees all of you – the wavering limbs even in a still stand, the dread that silently plagues your face, and the red that unfurls across your cheek. You had earned it earlier in the initial wrestle with the rookie. You were unyielding in handing over the kid to him, and he responded with a swing of his shooter across your face. But that was not before you’ve marked him yourself in your wrangle with him. He’s now marred with raw bands across his temple that matches the shape of your nails.

"Drop your blaster and raise 'em," Calican demands.

Watching Mando surrender and let his gun fall to the sand tightens your throat with the threat to suffocate. You grimace when the barrel of the rookie’s gun thrusts into your back and shoves you forward, before he barks at you to cuff the Mandalorian. The aim of his firearm trains in on Mando now and you feel the cave of your stomach bottom out to an unventured depth in grief. You’re gripping the iron restraints in the hook of your fingers until it pales with fear and disdain while you stumble down the incline. A defeated apology plays in your feeble eyes that momentarily meets the black intersecting his helmet before you’re rounding him.

Calican goes on an egotistical, self-esteeming, celebratory monologue about his triumph over one of a revered status as a Mandalorian. But you're not hearing any of it because Mando, with his hands crossed behind his head, faces his palm towards you to show the flash charge nestled in it. This reserved hunter of a few words yet of a certain commanding force defends that exact reputation, when a mere wordless gesture of his promptly eviscerates all of your fright.

While you mime the action of cuffing him, a quick glance to your left reveals to you the crates that you'll hide behind when his flare goes off. And when he swipes his thumb over the device, you read it as your cue to shut your eyes and duck towards those very crates. You hear the squeal in its fire. And then a howl from the blitzed and blinded rookie. Blaster shots. And then a _thud_.

You can’t even wait for the dust to settle before your eyes pop open and you’re straightening up behind the wooden boxes, because you’ve been reminded that defeat is one of the few things the battle-hardened Mandalorian is unfamiliar with. And because you’re frantic in looking for the child.

Mando’s blaster fire had thrown Calican’s now limp body off the side of the ramp. But the child previously in his arm isn’t seen within its proximity.

“Stay back,” Mando instructs you to wait for him to check that the rookie’s lifeless condition isn’t feigned before you come any closer.

You can’t find the patience to regard it. “The—the _kid_!” you breathlessly cry as you clamber past him with the desperate hope of finding the child unscathed. And when you do behind the adjacent crates, where he must’ve crawled away to safety after his own tumble from his captor's clutch, you plunge to your knees in relief and gather him into your arms. “Hey, you little bugger,” your words quiver from the residual fretfulness and fall from lips that snivel with reprieve. Faintly scraping the pads of your fingers in a trail from ear to ear behind his head both calms him and dusts the sand off him. He babbles something with a healthy tone and bright eyes, and it comes to you like your favourite song. “You’re okay, my sweet. You’re okay,” you coo to reassure not only him but yourself too.

Mando takes a sack of credits from Calican’s vest, claiming what was promised to him in their transaction that would’ve been useless for a corpse to keep anyway. Holding the child closely in the safety of your chest, you’re glancing at the unmoving figure. A sensation of surrealness makes you feel disassociated from your own bones, and you agree that you’ll never get used to seeing a dead body, whereas your teammate has likely effected many casualties himself. Your glimpse on the rookie lingers, almost like you’re waiting for him to move, while Mando bends down in front of you and relieves your arms of the child.

He makes sure the kid is okay before he’s drawing your stare back to him, hooking a single finger under your chin and raising it to meet him. You of course don’t find his eyes behind the black band, but it’s almost like you feel the heat of his gaze inspecting the bruise marking your cheek.

Your limbs act on their own when they bring your palm to overlap his wrist by your face. “I’m fine,” you promise.

And then it rushes you. It inundates you – the gratitude that _you are fine_ now when a few breaths ago, your blood was running cold with loss and finality. Because Mando would never let you exist in that place of dread for too long. Twice in the last couple months alone, Mando has saved both your life and the child’s. And now more than ever, you know that you wholly trust Mando with your existence.

He’s crouched close in front of you, and you can’t help but feel a request for the broad of his chest that exists mere inches from your face. The erupting thankfulness makes you desperate for a connection too. You move his hand aside only enough to lean forward until your forehead flattens on his pauldron. Your skin meets hard beskar, but you feel an overwhelming swath of warmth, security, fidelity.

“S-sorry I, I know this isn’t—I shouldn’t—but…” the frail words fall from your lips as a sigh, “…pl-please—just for a—just for a second.” You realize you haven’t let go of his wrist yet. In fact, you squeeze _tighter_. And he lets you. “Ha-had a lot of blasters pointed at me lately,” you reason your brash motion with a short-winded chuckle that pokes fun at your own unfortune.

“—safe.”

You don’t catch the first part of Mando’s response because his palm moves to the valley between your neck and shoulder, and you nearly accept it as an invitation to melt even further into him.

“—back to the ship. Come.” Even the distortion of his modulator couldn’t evade the gentle lull in his cadence.

\---

The door of the cockpit glides open for Mando’s entry. “The kid is asleep.”

You nod, “That’s good.” He must hold no stress or inhibition then if he can soundly find slumber.

After steering the Crest off of Tatooine until autopilot could take over, Mando left to take the kid to his bunk where he could rest.

“The spaceport’s pit droids will take care of the body,” Mando lets you know so you don’t have to ask. Because you _did_ want to ask – leaving the fate of the cadaver open-ended as the ship flew off felt unfinished.

You nod again.

“Are you,” he takes a stride to abbreviate the distance between him and the copilot’s seat you occupy, “alright?” His curled finger travels until it drifts by the purple on your cheekbone, but he doesn’t touch.

“Yes, thank you,” you’re soft in your tenor like you’re soft in your scale to meet his visor, not fully reaching destination because you’re still embarrassed from practically _throwing_ yourself onto him earlier.

His helmet dips in your peripheral like a nod before he takes his seat in the pilot’s chair. And then he’s quiet. And you think he’s quiet because… well, he’s _always_ quiet. You’re comfortable with that. But right now, he’s quiet because he’s meticulously trying to carve out the right words to say.

“I’m sorry,” is what finally breaks the silence and tenses you in your seat. “I’ve put you in danger. More than once.” His helmet is turned on his shoulder so that you can only regard its side profile, but you still register the full colour of the laden guilt in his tone.

“Mando, I know what I signed up for when I agreed to work for you.”

“And that might’ve been my mistake. Taking you on when I knew the risks.”

You don’t like what he’s implying and it brings you to your feet. “I feel—the child and I feel nothing but _safe_ around you, Mando,” you insist, a little less than gracefully, before he could suggest redirecting the flight path to Sorgan. “ _You_ ,” your hand shies and decides on finding the shoulder rest of his chair rather than finding him, “keep us safe.”

You’ve found a kind of home in these two. And you don’t want to be anywhere they aren’t.

Your clasp flinches away when his chair rotates until he faces you and the beskar on his knees grazes the front of your thighs. A shock invades you when you realize how near he is, like the distance separating the two of you could be fictional. But he doesn’t retreat from it.

“You’re…” he sighs, delivering as a neat string of static from a voice filter that could hardly render something so low and soft. A breath hitches in your throat when his two palms claim both sides of your hips and he leans forward until the crown of his helmet scarcely burrows the soft spot under your chest. “You’re so… good to us.”

You thoughtlessly latch onto his shoulders to recover balance when his added weight on you with those fucking arresting words puts a buckle in your knees. “Mando, you—” Each breath comes to you like you might not get another. “—You’re the one wh-who takes care of _us_.” You’re hardly audible even to the air with the quakes that consume you whole.

“Sorry, I…” he starts like he’s wants to excuse his actions, but his speech dies quick when he doesn’t find a forgivable reason to finish with.

You feel how tense he is under your fingers. And it comes as familiar to you, because it’s the same tension you wear when your yearning summits around him. His hands start to leave your hips, but you grab them and keep them pinned there.

“Touch me.”

It leaves you like the ghost of a gasp. You’ve taken a risk, but your greed for intimacy refuses to be ignored any longer.

Mando stills for the lifetime of a heartbeat before his helmet departs from your abdomen for him to look up at you. You’re shivering, but you deny the urge to break away from the visor so that the need in your eyes could assist you in your plea. “Touch me, Mando,” you repeat, volume still dim, but you know he heard the vibrant appetite in your voice because his hold on you tautens.

You hope it’s inspiration he needs, so keeping your palms overlapping his, you lead them in a slow scale up your body. Maker, your craving had been peaking so painfully that just the inexplicit sensation of his warmth climbing your sides even over several layers of clothing between the two of you nearly has you whining.

Then, Mando slides out from under your grip and leaves your figure. A panicked regret starts its bleed throughout your body at the rejection. But just as quick it was to start, it’s quick in its extinction when you learn it was for him to take off his gloves. And then you’re almost foolishly smiling in anticipation. You’re taking in the full image this time, singeing the shape, the curves, the hills, the golden hues of his hands into every wall of your mind.

He finds your hips again, but this time the tips of his fingers dig under the hem of your shirt. And then he holds there for a moment, the glass of his visor staying on you like he’s checking for your permission. You swallow and nod, a soft smile on your lips to speak about your delight.

When the stretch of his hands skim onto your skin, the bare, hot feel of him against you caps your airway. A fever courses you when you feel the savouring in his unhurried, measured pace, and the subtle hunger in how tightly he holds while he’s gliding up.

When he finally arrives at the swell of your breasts, the flat of his palm is impatient to take all of it. A low, gratified hum vibrates from his modulator. “F- _fuck_ , you’re— _soft._ You’re so _soft_.”

Stars, he’s just as needy as you are. The broken mewl that rolls off your tongue when the pads of his thumbs are indelicate in their roll over your pebbling nipples heightens his greed. So then he’s uncareful in the way his arms tear out from under your shirt, only to clasp onto the back of your thighs to reel you into him. You’ve never seen him move with so little method. He plants your knees on either side of his hips on the seat, crashing your chest into him and not allowing a single moment of distance to exist between the two of you. His insatiable hands curl into the full of your ass.

“—Been wanting this. Been wanting to touch you for so long.” A harsh exhale drones from him, and you’re almost hysterical with the desire to feel those heavy wisps of breath paint your skin. “Wanted to touch you when I cut your hair. Almost— _almost_ did too.”

The pit of your stomach pulls hot and tight. “Sh-sh-show me then _._ ” Your voice comes fragmented, but you demonstrate just how much you want it when you push down the waistband of your pants until it pools on top of his thighs.

A throaty groan rumbles long and low from his helmet when his fingers dive between your legs to catch the generous saturation teased on the fabric of your panties. “ _Maker_ , this is how you feel?”

Mando has certainly led people on to believe he’s quieter than he really is with how expressive he’s being now. For _you_. And it makes you giddy with delight. “Not the first time either,” you sigh when you want so desperately to be stuffed by those very digits tracing the shape of you over the last layer of clothing that separates.

“Fuck, all this time—”

“I’m here now.” A strangled rasp pries from your throat when you grip his wrist to hold his hand where it is so you can _griiiiind_ into his fingers. “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me.” You’re taking advantage of the circumstances to implore him to never suggest the idea of sending you home ever again.

Mando is impatient as he tears your panties down your hips. He hisses when his bare skin can finally touch your own bareness that’s sopping for him, and he glosses the full length of his fingers with it. “Don’t want to— _Maker_ , I don’t want to. Couldn’t even think about it.”

You’re bearing down on him at the delicious contact, your temple crashing onto the top of his helmet. His digits completely flatten across your cunt and begins rolling. He’s kneading your clit with the most delectable pressure and consistency that paints stars on the back of your eyelids. You’re coiling at the enthralling soreness that wrings you of the lewdest of noises that he gets to hear the full of right by his sheathed face.

“Sh-shit, you were always so quiet. And now…”

You’re frail against the gruff in his voice, and because two of his fingers are working their way into you. You have nothing to respond with except the clumsily assembled whines when he decadently arcs inside of you. He starts pumping into you at a deliberate pace, and he doesn’t waver in following the innate rolling of your hips either. Every one of your breaths come out choked when you feel the indecent amount of wetness that’s dribbled onto his palm every time it slaps against your clit during every plunge into you. You’re edging closer and closer to a ferocious undoing with every indulgent curl.

“ _Fuck_ ,” you moan feverishly, “fuck, fuck, fu—Mando, I’m—”

He sees it in the wrench of your jaw, the cavernous knit between your brows, the tensing in your limbs. So, his touch retreats, and he earns himself an anxious cry emptying from the full cavity of your chest when he’s no longer satiating the pulsing in your cunt.

“Not yet—not like this. I want you to—” he brokenly grunts before he’s rising from his seat, standing you up with him. You’re leaning heavily into his strong guidance in anticipation because the violent aches between your thighs cripples you from firm movement.

Mando turns you and jostles you forward into the flight board. You grab onto the console’s ledge to salvage your balance before you stumble into any buttons or controls that’ll lurch the ship out of its calculated path. And then he moulds himself against your back, the top of his helmet dropping onto your shoulder blade as he hangs his head. And he’s fucking _panting_.

“Can I please— _please_ …”

His hips press to your bare ass for you to feel what he means. The very hard and throbbing thing he means.

You pant in agreement, the thought of him finally filling you with everything he has to offer whelms you with a quivering thrill. With seething impatience, you push back into him, wagging your hips in a staging for him. The starved growl he responds with from behind shakes you with exhilaration. He burrows his nails into the roundness of your thighs while lining up your hips. But then his rush expires. He’s still huffing and puffing with desire but he holds the both of you still.

“What’s wrong?” you don’t mean for the words to fall as whiny as they did. But you’re fucking _throbbing_.

He replies with a thorough swipe of your cunt by the tips of two fingers. “Keep your eyes forward. Don’t look back. Understand?”

The command in his baritone encourages you to nod, though you have yet to catch yourself up on what that means. He explains for you when he breaches your peripheral, and you marginally follow the movement to find that he sets his helmet down beside you on the board. And then paralysis colonizes your figure.

He tells you exactly why he did such a seemingly heedless move when you hear him push his two fingers tainted with your slickness into his mouth and close his lips around it. “Maker,” he sighs with a gravelly indulgence in his tone. Unmodulated. And the full, dark, rich timbre sets your heart on an erratic tempo like it no longer finds home in your chest.

You’re left with no time to come down from your barraged haze when you realize he’s already loosened his belt and took his cock out the waistband of his pants, because he’s propping its head against your folds now. You feel the indulgent burn of his tireless stare, intently watching as he saturates himself with your shameless wetness before tapping himself on your swollen bead to see you desperately twitch in response.

Your leg lightly kicks up in a plea. “Mando, I need it _now_ , please. Please—” your shoulders bow lower in submission as you back your hips right up against him, “—please, please, please, I want it so bad, _please_.”

His cock stills at the very margins of your entrance. “ _Easy_ , you sweet thing.” A slow, thorough, savouring lunge into you reels the neediest of whines from the both of you. “You—sweet, p- _pretty_ th—” he’s cut short by the rasping groan that heaves from his chest. His breathing stammers as he fills you to the hilt.

You’re choked by the bliss of feeling his size forcing you to stretch with the sheathing. Your limbs want to thrash when he starts a steady rock. And apparently, the pleasure was good enough that your body didn’t wait for your permission, because a swing of your hand to land elsewhere on the dash and messes with whichever control that causes the console to blare your mistake aloud. And then you’re tensing for completely different reasons when an unwelcoming alarm starts beeping.

But Mando doesn’t falter – his thrusts, his panting doesn’t stray even when he reaches and flips a switch that soothes both you and the alert, like nothing happened. Because right now, he cares for nothing else other than the tightening and pulsing wrap around his cock.

“S-so _pretty_ —” he murmurs, hungry, greedy, nothing short of ravenous, “—how you’re taking me so well, precious girl.” His armoured arm braces across your chest and brings you back up flushed against him. Then, he rests his head in the crook of your neck as he loses himself in the heavying of his lunges that pound into you.

A feverish moan departs from you. Fucking stars, you feel the tickle of his locks of hair against your neck. You feel the scratching of his stubble on your skin. As if you weren’t already fucking _rapturous_ with how he’s fucking you, the trust in bearing his face near you, the commitment in refusing to let space exist between the two of you is enough to tip you over the edge.

You plummet into climax without warning. Your panting escalates into a shameless moan, escaping the barricade set up by your teeth that crashes down on your bottom lip. He clings onto you to steady you in taking the relentlessness of his thrusts, but he holds tight like he doesn’t want you running away. As if you would _ever_ , with the way he’s stealing from you every lustful noise you might have stored for him. You’re begging with the peak of your need into each stroke that feeds your high.

“Fu—uck, I’m, I’m c-close,” he follows with a hiss, his volume breaking and his hips falling into a rhythm that starts getting messy.

“I-inside, Mando. Please, inside m-me,” you squeak, his insistent hammering robbing you of firm speech. “I want—feel your c-cum _inside_ —” Your hand reaches back and squeezes the fabric over his thigh like it’ll keep him from pulling away.

Mando doesn’t leave but somehow leans even deeper into your frame, and it’s to circle his hand around your hips to wedge between your thighs. He urges you towards another orgasm too, rubbing you heatedly and quickly. And it’s working. The untiring shapes he’s got up against your throbbing clit, the untiring prod he’s got up against your pulsing walls – it’s all becoming too much. Euphoria slams down on you and you see hot, white hazes against the black drop of your shut eyes. Your lips know how to speak nothing but indulgent profanities.

One last sharp lunge has Mando’s entirety claimed by an unyielding shudder against you as climax thunders through him. He is gasping for a breath as he spills himself into you. The low groan of your name gets caught in his throat as he gently rocks to drain every last drop of himself inside of you. And it’s deliciously _hot_ inside of you.

You both writhe it out until you’re rid of your highs, but Mando doesn’t waste before he’s reaching for his helmet to slide back into. You’re in a foolish amount of awe and gladness that he trusted to bare himself vulnerable to you and that you wouldn’t take a peek. But you’re wishing – and you feel a little selfish for it – to know his presence just a little longer without the voice filter or the layer of beskar that separates the tickle of his facial hair from kissing your skin.

You must’ve been frozen for too long in your stance that’s still taut with recovery from a thorough orgasm after withstanding what seemed like a touch drought, because you flinch back to realization when Mando pulls up your pants for you. You mutter an embarrassed thanks, but you feel stupid, like a child. And the feeling stays when you’re appalled you even considered stopping him, because feeling the hot threads of him inside you threatening to drip down your folds, you’re stricken by the craving to taste him.

You bet his taste is decadent, delectable, divine, and it would drape your tongue thickly, warmly. You’d be disgusted with yourself if every spot in your consciousness wasn’t already wholly spoiled with your tenacious desire for him.

 _Later_ , you think to yourself, when you’ve both retreated to the privacy of sleep. Later, when it collects on your panties and you can steal a quick swipe of your finger to your mouth.


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> injuries, accidents, and amends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warnings: descriptions of a wound + blood + injection, mando briefly and accidentally hurts you, uhhh /filth/, blindfolds, fat meat mando :-), oral sex (m + f receiving), facial, cum-eating, multiple orgasms + overstimulation, mando is insatiable!!
> 
> a/n: maybe this is too long and winded bc half of this is just one (1) smut sequence :-//

Alright, so, you _didn’t_ get to taste him after all. Having two orgasms meticulously rip through you from head to toe, one after the other, had you _spent_. Sleep might had even taken you before your head hit the pillow too.

So, you’re regretting it now, after you’ve been left alone all day with nothing to accompany you but your untiring thoughts. You have the kid with you too, of course, but you can only pretend for so long that the two of you are having intelligible conversations when you’re faking all of your comprehension of his _huu_ ’s and _patoo_ ’s.

After Mando had landed the Razor Crest on some industrial planet this morning, he left to put the newfound credits – courtesy of the departed Calican – to use with some new supplies and munitions. Given the less than amicable reputation of the raiders and pirates that litter this city, he instructed you and the child to stay in the safe seal of the ship while he goes on the search for it alone. So, you’ve taken an occupation in doing some maintenance and cleaning around the Crest, so thoroughly to pass the time that by now, you find yourself methodically polishing between the insignificant crevices of the flight board’s controls.

But even that wasn’t enough to distract you from asking yourself if it— _last night_ —will ever happen again. It couldn’t have been anything more than just two people satiating the starved nature that organically breeds from living in close quarters with no one else but each other.

Right?

But _Maker_ , did you make it so blatant just how starved you were – coming twice, one right after the other. You’re shameless. Maybe it’s good you didn’t have to face Mando today.

The thoughts flee you when you feel the vibrations under your feet that tell you the ramp is lowering. You’ve had all day to prepare on how you’ll act around him once he returns. But now you’re forgetting left from right, let alone whether you decided if it is safer to pretend like nothing happened or to address the bantha in the room right out of the gates.

You spin to find the kid’s betrayal, having fallen asleep in his pram that rests on the copilot’s chair. This kriffing green toad was supposed to be your conversation buffer, but a nap must’ve been more stimulating than watching you clean the console like it was a surgery. A defeated sigh deflates your shoulders as you reach to close the pod and let the kid rest, before grudgingly leaving to face the tribulation yourself. You’ll see if Mando needs help putting things away, and to remind him of the leftover nut loaves and meat bricks if he hasn’t eaten yet.

You start with deliberate steps down the ladder. But your landing onto the hull’s bottom is much less so – brash and panicked when you hear the disjointed, modulated breathing and the hefty _clunk_ onto the deck that sounded like the same weight as an armoured Mandalorian.

Composure is held at a great length away when you find him slumped on the floor against the far wall with the cast of net slinging back the mount of storage boxes. The lag in his movement as he removes a pauldron reads like he’s expended, and you suspect he didn’t do himself any favours when he probably forced himself to stock away his purchases before he’d tolerate a collapse.

“Sh-Shit, Mando, are you—what happened?” A gale of flustered words sputters from your lips while you dive to your knees beside him. You’re following suit in helping him rid his other pauldron, unsure exactly why, until your fingers hit a deep-seated feeling of viscid moisture that drains the rest of your extremities of sense and acuity. The dread rears when a reluctant retrieval finds you generous ribbons of red dyeing the length of your fingers and the lustre of the shoulder plate.

“Bounty hu—unters. Group of them. Ambushed m—” A dry pant steals his voice, the blanched tone of it sounding like it hurt to shape each word. “Managed t-to take them all down but—got… one got me.”

Paying caution but wavered by a haste, you wedge a palm behind his back to bunch up a corner of his cape and press it to the general area of the bleeding. “Fuck, h-how bad is it?”

His chest is heaving but he narrowly strains out a word. “Th-the—the…”

“The medpac!” You gasp, adjacent to a tenor of apology for not thinking of it sooner. You clamber over his outstretched legs to bring you closer to the wall of storage, where you plunge an arm into an opening of the mesh to rummage for the kit.

“—the Crest looks spotless,” he rasps to finish, and it didn’t sound comfortable. “Good job.”

You’ve got no capacity to assemble a response, hoping that his apparent indifference means there’s optimism to his situation. But, you’re more grounded in your suspicion otherwise, glimpsing at the exhaustion that dims his movement and renders him near unfamiliar when he works to loosen his cuirass until the plates fall down his frame.

“You were gone all day, but I just thought—” your lumbering clutch retreats from the net with the pack, ungainly with frustration. “— _Shit_ , I should’ve known. Sh-should’ve checked in on you on the commlink.” You don’t waste as you’re hurdling back over to the side of his injury and throwing open the contents of the kit onto the floor. “Why didn’t you say something?”

A broken but amused scoff shudders his chest. “And what—hah, what would you have done? S-s-set out, blaster in hand, to help me face them?”

Mando’s mild taunt brings you to empty a small huff from your throat, not insulted, but staggered he could find any facility to make light of his state right now. While you, on the other hand, have limbs that want to shake like a guarantee that it’s the only thing you know how to do. But you refuse it. Because right now, you need to promise yourself and Mando that you can be of trust and reliance. So, you play along to ground you to that promise.

“Save your breath, Mando.” You’re able to find a jeering edge through the char in your mouth and it nearly startles you. “I’m gonna take a look, okay?”

Mando lets you flatten a hand across his unarmored chest for him to lean forward on so you can inspect his wound. Slowed by a tire, he loosens his neck wrap to undo his cape and free them from obstructing you.

“And— _yeah_ , so _what_ if I showed up, blaster in hand?” you lean into the gentle mischief to comfort you while you’re straightening on your knees to arch over his shoulder and peer down his back. “How hard is it to—to aim and shoot? I bet all that beskar is just to look pretty anyway. F-For show. And—and the kid c-could’ve done his magic hand wave-y thing you’ve told me about.”

You feel Mando’s entertained reply in the scarce humming in his chest on your palm, but you don’t hear it because you’re instead barraged by the acid building behind your airway when you find the slash in his flight suit, the frayed seams of it speckled with a quality of mahogany. The tunic is fucking _soaked_ , you feel, when quivering fingers reach to pull back the teared fabric. And then your stomach is hollowing out at the sight of the thick trickles spilling from the gouge that breaks his skin. It’s tucked under his shoulder blade, like a vibroblade must’ve just missed the armour and dug into his side. It doesn’t look like it got too deep, but the damage made as the dagger shredded its way out in the retrieval is certainly worse. You’re biting your tongue to kill the startled curse from leaving your lips, because you’ll give your fear the power to grow if you speak of it aloud.

You draw back on top of your calves, occupying your hands with the medpac contents so he doesn’t see you shake. “S-sorry, I’ve never administered bacta as an injection before, but—” your breath hitches when you palm the fucking _huge_ syringe, “—but I’ll be careful.”

“No.” Mando doesn’t need more than a single, neat syllable to deliver a weight of finality. His hand overlaps yours that holds the E-bacta shot and urges it back down into the kit. “It’s for—I got that for you and the kid. Maker _forbid_ we’ll ever have to use it. But—save it in case… in case something happens to either of you. Patches—bacta patches will do.” He heaves a low grunt when he reaches for the bandages instead.

You’re rattled by a disbelief that he could even think to debate this. “Mando, it’s a _stab_ wound. Bacta patches a-are for temporary—it won’t be enough!”

“Looks… worse than it is.”

Your face contorts with distress and urgency as you gasp your plea. “Fuck, Mando, you—you’re bleeding out! No time to—” Panicked fingers clasp onto his sleeve to prove your desperation, while you’re thinking about just how much more blood he’s poured by now. “—to argue, so pl- _please_ just let me do this!”

Your heart is pumping so brashly, it drives a pulsing to your furthest extremities, and you could’ve sworn it was drumming a rhythm against the floor underneath you. A cold sweat swamps your skin enough that you feel yourself clammy and nearly sliding atop the metal panels. It drags on for seemingly eternities even more so when Mando’s visor holds on you, so rigid and covert to keep you from knowing if he is steadfast in his decision or if his defence is withering.

And then he grants you the reprieve you so anxiously need. “Don’t… use it all. Just—just a quarter dose.”

The sigh of relief that you let out is the largest give your lungs have felt this entire time and it’s almost blissful. You’ll give him a half dose since he hasn’t seen just how nasty the wound is himself, and you’re not willing to take bets. But you won’t tell him that.

Your grip is strong with an eagerness now as you’re prudently gliding the kit’s pair of shears along his suit, from the hem at his neck into a trail down his chest and another down his back. You peel the trimmed strip back to access his wound and his arm, where you’ll decide on a fleshy area for the jab. You’re bringing the needle there while the adamant need to stop his bleeding, to hear colour return to his voice, to watch verve return to his movements, tunnels your vision. Until the cave of Mando’s palm drapes your hovering wrist.

You peer up at him with a vivid reassurance that displaces the nervous glisten in your eyes. “Qu-quarter dose. I’ll be careful,” you repeat back to him.

“I know.” His calm cadence tells a story of trust where you imagine his gaze couldn’t. It is another concern that he is instead reminding you of. “But… _breathe_.”

With all of your senses bound to a certain resolve, you hadn’t realized your breaths were at a standstill. But Mando noticed.

He always notices.

You’re nodding as you take his advice, attentively inflating your chest in the same tempo you sink the syringe into his skin. The exhale that grinds out from his modulator sounds even more ragged, like it had sieved through clenched teeth first. And then Mando tips his helmet back against the wall as the tension extinguishes from his muscles when you’re drawing the bacta shot away, half empty. You’re mirroring the same ease as a solace starts a slow bleed throughout your body, ejecting the fretful shivers from your bones.

“Sneaky. That was more than a quarter.”

Stars. Nothing you do ever evades him. You’re quick to move on before your trickery dwells in the air for too long.

“Gonna clean you up now, Mando.”

Still, you find contentment in the fact that his senses must not have been startlingly eroded if he was able to catch your fib. Before the high of the bacta sets in and possibly lures him into a lethargy that will work to your detriment when you alone can’t move his heavy frame around, you carefully help him shift for you to better face the arch of his back. He turns away from you, leaning his uninjured side against the wall instead.

You’re more than vaguely intimidated by the vibrant gash that stares back at you while you’re cleansing it with a basin of water and some towels. But, you try to find soothe in the reminder that in a few hours, it’ll close to a dull ridge of a scar, maybe even more insignificant a few hours after that. E-bacta shots are _potent_ , which is why they’re so rare to come across and why Mando was so insistent on saving it.

You let him recover in the quiet, feeling the delicacy of his uninterrupted breathing under your hand, flattened across his ribs to steady him while another watchfully dabs a cloth at the swaths of red over his skin. You’ve mopped most of the blood off him, and it lets you see him better, feel him deeper.

Mando is hot to the touch. His skin is honey in both sight and texture. Uncovered are the gentle hills and valleys that carve his sturdy arm, leading to the sculpted expanse of his shoulder. Cascading from it are inviting crevices that delectably map out the strong of his back. And just as spellbinding is the climb, where the solid column of his neck boasts as a perfect canvas for the brush of your tongue. You almost hate that it’s an overtaking thought in your mind while he’s tired and weak and hunched over with injury in front of you. But it’s innate when this is the most of him you’ve ever seen – you haven’t even seen his _cock_ yet even though he was filling you with it to the hilt last night. Still, you’re rising to leave and rinse the soiled cloths, and to starve out the thought with distance before the indecent opinions continue.

While dumping the basin of polluted water into the fresher’s sink, you’re reminded that although you’ve cleared the area of his wound, his clothes remain generously stained. “Mando, your flight suit—i-it’s soaked,” you speak over the running stream of the faucet. “Do… d-do you want me to help you out of it?”

You’ve tried your best to strip most of the colour from your voice so that your offer rings as nothing more than medical and aiding, but you’re resenting the reveal in the stutters that splinters your words. And then, it’s something else that worries you instead, when nothing breaks the quiet, still air in reply. A pause this long wasn’t normal for even your reserved Mandalorian shipmate.

“Mando?” you call again to stir his rest, in case he was snoozing, while finding him exactly where you had left him. But then, you’re looking back at the blood-saturated towels that pool in the sink and… he’s bled _a lot_. Your peer returns to him when this known light-sleeper once again fails to respond. And still has yet to move. Actually, you don’t remember a single shift in his position since you first touched a damp towel to his skin.

 _Shit_. A winded breath is held captive in your throat as you’re hastening back over to him. Maker, you hope he is just resting. But the fear is incessant – were you too late with the bacta injection? Had he bled out beyond repair at that point? Fuck, you should’ve just slammed that shot into him without waiting to argue about it!

You’re kneeling behind him now but you’re quaking too much, unable to steady _yourself_ in order to compare for a rise or fall in his frame that’ll tell you he’s breathing. So, you’re desperate for a more immediate and firm confirmation, and you decide you’ll find it in the dive of two fingers under the bottom ridge of his helmet that’ll comb for a pulse. Your digits are wiggling under the tight hug of beskar, but before you could catch a rhythm, everything spins and a struck to the back of your head rips the air from your lungs.

Doubling vision keeps your sights from settling, but you make out the abyssally black visor that hovers above you and the weight that crushes your chest to keep you fastened to the floor.

This act is foreign. Far from the light touches and soft voices he normally uses towards you. But it’s because your act on him had been just as foreign.

“—t’s me! Mando, i-it’s me!” you cough, you pant, your lungs pulling up and tight as they’re desperate for a breath that seemingly exists an impossible reach away. What you had managed to push out your throat was only a scarce ghost of your voice, but without the time for recovery, you used anything that would’ve been enough to sober him.

“Sh—” he doesn’t waste when he lets the recognition of you wrench himself off your figure, “— _Shit_.” His reach starts for your shoulder to help you off the ground but recoils away just as quick, averse to startling you further with any more of his sudden movements. “Th-the shot—! It—! It…” The turbulence that filters through his vocoder speaks of unrest and worry and blame – too rattled to find the finishing words.

In his dark, quiet, foggy, drug-induced doze that had muted all concepts of where and when, all he had perceived was the uninvited fidget of his helmet, like it was lifting off his neck. Bacta shots have been known to cloud senses and stimulate a bit of a high, so he perceived a threat before he perceived you. His bounty hunter instincts stole the reins and he reacted how he would to any adversary that had welcomed themselves to the trespass of exposing his face. Except, it was you, not an enemy, that he had forcefully thrown back and pinned to the ground.

“Are you hurt? D-do you need—”

Huffs still erupting from your chest, you instead try to speak with the reach of your hand, urgent to dispel his apprehension and relieved to find that vitality has returned to him. Mando receives you by offering the hook of his elbow for you to latch on, another delving behind your back as they together draw you up into a sit. “Stars, your—” you try to let words fall between each cough until you’ve gathered enough of an unbroken voice, “—your strength is back. Th-that’s go—od.”

“Are you hurt?” he repeats again, his speech low and compacted by the gravity of concern now. The fabric of his gloves scratches your face when his palms swallow the margins of your jaw. He holds you like this for him to study the life in your eyes.

“Yeah— _yeah_! Fine! I’m fine!” Having fully caught your breath, you add a vibrancy to your tenor in case your gaze wasn’t convincing enough, and because this intimate act spikes your heartbeat in a way that disarranges your pitch. “Just—just surprised me is all. But I’m fine.” You’re uninclined to mention the muffled panging at the back of your head, but you figure it will subside shortly.

Still, the black of his visor fixing on you tells you he is immeasurably far away from letting go of his blame. “Sorry doesn’t—sorry doesn’t even begin to—”

You wrap around his wrists and _squeeeze_ to help your plea, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

The fever that starts in your chest from interlocking like this is threatening to travel like wildfire. Your eyes catch the trimmed strip of his flight suit that wilts from his arm, before you’re following the contours that shape the unveiled length of it. And then an appetite to see more derails all other thoughts.

Your hands move to scarcely lift one of his palms off your face, only for your fingers to gingerly arch under the hem of his glove before you lag there and glance back at him in request. He wordlessly responds with permission when his hand draws backwards to make the stripping of his glove mutual. You don’t let a second to exist before you’re replacing the naked cave of his grasp with the curve of your cheek. Your face sinks into the delicate hills of it that convince you it’s where you belong.

“You… could never hurt me.” The bleed of his bared warmth across your skin empties a quiet, idyllic sigh from your chest. You have to bite back the _purr_ that nearly falls from the seam of your lips when his fingers curl tighter along your jaw. “I’m glad you’re alright,” your voice dips with soft honey to reassure him.

You’re losing yourself in his rich scent that mutes the border where he ends and you start. It hikes your need for more, and your body acts on its own when it searches for it by abbreviating the gap between your face and his chest. When he doesn’t move away, you allow yourself to close the distance with a bury into the place under his collarbones.

Stars, your self-serving desire certainly erodes any idea of reservation. Though, your face is fitting beautifully in the firm of his chest. But Maker, you’re greedy. You don’t want to stop there. You want skin to skin. You want to _taste_.

“Mando, I… I want to—”

You don’t finish with words but with action when your fingers clasp around the clipped edge of his tunic that loosely still clings to him. But then his hands are binding both your wrists and you freeze like a caught criminal. The gravel in his next words, though, reads like an invitation.

“ _Tell me_ what you want, precious girl.”

Only wisps sieve from your lips, “F-fuck, Mando, I—” The peaking of your appetite puts a fluster in your grapple for words. “I want to—to have you in m-my mouth.”

A ragged breath drones out from his modulator as he releases you, hands dropping into a grasp of your thighs instead like he needs to catch his balance after such lurid verses. It tells you he’s crippled by a craving just as laden. So you take it as permission for your digits to continue its peel of the fabric down his torso, revealing the hills of his clavicle that you trace with delicate kisses. The gorgeous way your lips cushion against his skin is enough to string together a shameless hum from the depths of your throat.

You’re fucking brash, _ravenous_ , because you don’t even realize how low your hands have travelled on their own until his chest puffs and a gritted sigh rips out his voice filter. Only then do you finally feel the friction you yourself put between the wrap of your palm and the length below his abdomen.

Mando has surely found his strength back, given just how quick he stiffens and grows in your grip. You leave no time for deliberation or calculation when you’re tearing his waistband just low enough for you to take him into your hand. Maker, you’re _purring_ when you finally feel the naked heat of his cock. You’re eager to spiral your thumb around the tip while you feverishly size him against your palm.

“F- _Fuck_.” His daunting girth spills a curse from your lips before you’re able to catch it.

How did he fit _all that_ inside you last night? You’re startled, but more than that, you’re eager to find out for yourself again. The sheer length of him makes your mouth crave to taste him, to stretch around him, to abrade the cap of your throat. And you’ll indulge yourself with just that when you stable yourself on your knees before dipping your head to touch a thick lather of your tongue from the base to the velvet head. His length leans against the flat of your hand as you do so, and feeling him respond with a twitch in your hold swells your craving to take all of him into your mouth. But his ached panting out the vocoder reminds you of another spoil that you’re absolutely yearning for, and it delays you from continuing.

“Mando,” you resurface almost with an impatient gasp, “will you take off your helmet?”

Just so your audacity isn’t dwelling in the air for too long, you show him what you mean when you throw your shirt over your head. A few swift movements has you smoothly trimming across the waist with the heavy-duty shears from the medpac, still nearby and still unpacked. Then, you’re taking the long strip you’ve made yourself and blanketing your eyes with it, taking the dangling ends into a wrap that meets at the back of your head, where you’ll secure the threads with a tight knot. You hope he won’t also make you pathetically explain with words just how needy you are in your wish to hear his raw cadence and unfiltered pleasure when you later push his cock the deepest it’ll go in your mouth.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he is tender in both his timbre and his gesture when he meets you by a delicate touch on your cheek, just under the fabric of the blindfold.

“Y-Yes.” A conservative syllable, yet without your sight, you’re able to hear just how graceless it was in tenfold. “Will—will you take it off?”

And you get your answer when you hear the rim of beskar lightly _clunk_ against the ground. Thrill surfaces on your face as a foolish smile before you’re able to extinguish it. But you’ll make a spectacle of yourself in another way, pumping the length of him as you dip the connect of your lips back down to the tip, now glossed by a film of precum.

You’re thorough in flattening your tongue against the underside of his cock as you slowly take him into the hot bind of your mouth. The slight hop in Mando’s tone tells you he’s rolled his head back, before his lips billow a hiss that is an octave away from an unreserved groan. Indulging in the undressed sound of it urges your thighs to squeeze together, creating a bit of a stammer in your kneel atop the floor panels.

The tease of his taste excites you, so you invite him into a deeper glide along untouched depths of your tongue. You only reach the midpoint of his size before an introduced ache forces your lips to clasp down harder. You gently suck to tauten the wrap of your mouth around him.

"You feel incre— _ah_ —credible. Do—doing s-s-so well," his breath scarcely survives long enough to punctuate his grunt with your name. “Keep g-going.”

Reveling in your earned praise, your lips open again for him to watch when you drag his length back down to the front of your tongue, your mouth coated by the precum trickling from his swollen tip. Your appetite for grinding the edge of your airway overpowers all other sophisticated thoughts, so you’re keen to close right back in. You feel his hand gather your hair to expose the nape of your neck, where he dances two fingers of his other hand along in encouragement.

“S-so beautiful. Y-you’re _so beautiful_ like this, sweet girl.”

Mando’s panting swells and plunges with every slip against your tongue. The stammering lips that spout gruff curses linked by desperate praises make his taste and the accompanying burn at the border of your throat all the more gratifying. You’re addicted to his strangled breaths every time your mouth nearly sheaths him whole. So your bobbing quickens as you’re greedy to hear more of his bliss vocally translate.

Looking at you was a dangerous game – the view of your flushed cheeks that cave to the precise curve of his cock, contorted brows that tremor in rhythm with every dive, and your swollen mouth that brims with an immodest cocktail of your spit and his slickness – all threatening of a climax that would happen too soon.

And you sense it coming too, in both sounds and touch. A primeval grunt slackens his jaw and reels out his throat. A series of twitches course his limbs under the grapple of your palms. It summits your delight and drives your mouth to an unreserved tempo.

But then he pulls you away. Except, you still find yourself lacking the thick taste of his cum. You realize he hadn’t finished in your mouth, hearing him pump his cock with his own fist to release himself elsewhere, so to not smother you with it. And it’s a plot that you refuse.

You rush to join the sleek head of his length with the flat of your outstretched tongue, just in time for one last lurch of his hips to jet out the hot white threads across your mouth. It connects to the peak of your nose and extends as far as speckles in your hair. You can’t help but whine when your tongue swipes to collect the ribbons on your lips, elated that you’ve finally caught his taste. The edge of your finger pushes the rest that dribbles from your chin before you close your mouth to drench the entire cave with it. An indulgent smirk stretches across your face as you eagerly swallow his cum like it’s a meal you’re thankful for.

He sighs with a searing fever at the lurid sight of your saliva mixing with his cum and threading from the blushing pillows of your lips. The expanse of his palm hugs the side of your face to straighten you in your kneel and bring you closer for him to admire. His thumb blots at the light traces that smear a corner of the blindfold.

In case the two of you ever want to use it again.

Mando hums with a low voice that’s thoroughly broken in by the lingers of a turbulent high, “Hmm, pretty thing.” He inches forward and brings nearer the husk of his voice to your ear. “How’s that taste?”

Stars, he’s brash this time.

He lets the pleased grin on your expression answer for you, before he finds out for himself when he closes the distance with a soft kiss that catches some of the sheen on your lips.

Fuck. He just kissed you. He’s been inside you and you’ve just sucked him off like tomorrow wasn’t coming, and all of that had already surged you with an exhaustive elation. But _this_. Maker, this will stay with you till kingdom come.

“You… treat me so well, precious girl,” his gentle volume fogs along your skin. And you must be so lulled by it, your wits completely surrendered to it, because it escapes your register entirely how he’s already moved you onto your back. You feel a fabric underneath you, which must’ve been the gathering of his discarded cape for you to lie down on it comfortably. He must’ve also stripped off the remaining tatters of his flight suit, because you feel his bare torso stretch against your own when he leans into you from above. His lips delicately ornate your face with butterflies – and it starts a summer in your chest – as he takes a clean cloth from the medpac to dab the rest of the stains on your face.

“I can…” you draw in a breath to hearten your next words, “…treat y-you well when—whenever you want, Mando.”

The tickle of his facial hair hovers in the valley of your neck, and the light rumble you feel vibrate against your skin must’ve been his quiet chuckle.

Fuck, it must be a gorgeous sight. The two of you, half naked and melded together as his unbared face cushions against your most sensitive parts. A sight you can’t see for yourself, but it’s a sacrifice you’re more than willing to make if you can feel and hear the amplified intensity of the rest of it.

You hold a breath captive in your chest as you’re compliant in stretching your arms above your head when Mando glides off your bandeau. You’re shivering against his relished sigh, blushing when he lets himself see you fully now. Quickly, he finds home in your soft mounds with the nip of his tongue and teeth. He loses himself in a gluttonous exchange of hefty breaths and the swift rakes of teeth that teases the peak of your nipple, tugging to lightly swell before soothing over with the lush sweep of his tongue. Frail whimpers rolling from your tongue tells him of how surrendered you are to his sway.

He is uncharacteristically less than coherent when he speaks on how the salt of your skin is an intoxicating flavour for him. And fucking stars, his face and his hands are moving lower. And they’re moving _quick._ The drifting smell of the slick desire between your thighs enthrals him to an irreversible degree – he’s unable to wait for you to lift your hips when he moves back to tug away every remaining layer that separates you from him.

As soon as your wet cunt is chilled by the cool air kissing it, a pant shivers from your lips. He is eager to feel the thick gloss for himself, the pads of his fingers running a thorough trail that spreads the sheen for you to feel what an indecent mess you’ve made of yourself. “Shi—t, pretty girl, is this—is this all for me?”

You’re unarmed against the hunger in his baritone as a heated rouge unfurls across your face. The reactions torrenting through you makes him realize that his mouth also begs to taste you until you come. So then his hands are meticulous in their need to feel you as he parts your thighs, allowing him to marvel at the sodden anticipation that glistens in between. It draws a gruff hum of greed from the depths of his throat.

Shock rushes you before anything else when his mouth closes in. You’re twitching at the raw and naked contact you’re so desperate for, irrepressible as if to confess to him that he’s robbed your body of autonomy. He is blatant in his muttered praises about your slickness and taste while his lips cycle the capture and release of your folds. Your hands desperately search for something to grasp, and you find it in the tangles of his hair, another on top of his own hand that curls around the swell of your thigh. Then he moves to lap your clit, savouring all of the trickling desire he presses out of you. Your hips become untameable as it grinds along with the thorough pushes and strokes of his wet muscle.

“Fu—Fu—uck, Mando, I—” The barrier of your teeth drives down on your lips to curb the voice that begs to break the still air with a brazen volume. “— _So_ good, it—it’s— _too good_. I’m—shit, you’re—” An unyielding fever robs you of concrete language and puts a scramble in your thoughts. The floor panels start to take the assault of your hands that are frantic for purchase.

“Sweet thing,” he doesn’t withdraw the slightest, doesn’t interrupt the friction or pace when he hums words into your skin. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

And you can _feel_ it too – the way his mouth moves against you is telling of his gladness that he’s only able to enjoy you like he is right now because of how you’ve helped. Though, you hope the chances of needing to help another wounded Mando again is closer to… _never_.

A quavering sigh departs you. “—W-worried. You had me s-so worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” You can’t see it, but you sense the heat of his unwavering stare on you, like he’s drinking in how your core writhes to meet each of his strokes. “Never again.”

You’re at a lost, air stolen by the shapes he traces against your throbbing clit. He hisses of approval at the painting of pleasure you leave on his tongue, illustrating how much of a pleasured mess he is unraveling you to. He’s still gluttonous in his wish to see how you finish, and it mirrors in the heightening of his rhythm.

Spurs of ecstasy start to unfold between your thighs before it expands like fireworks in a blinding hot scale to the rest of your body. Your hips are rocking and your legs are thrashing, hysterical in your chase for release. And he is holding forfeit far away as he continues with his lapping that doesn’t stray. Shuddering gasps are desperate to soothe your pumping lungs, yet somehow, your speech still fights to cry the most shameless and indecent dialect.

The pressure of something like a stretched coil released into a wild springing begins so slowly evaporate. The drumming settles into a quietly pulsing trance as delight bleeds into your bones and your limbs submit to a wilt.

He is unwasteful, murmuring with satisfaction as he leaves no inch of your cunt unattended. “Look how fucking good you taste,” he gravelly rumbles as he moves off your thighs, only to climb and meet you with the push of his tongue past your lips. Both the taste of him and the taste of your saturation floods your mouth. You’re obsessed with the tender pillows of his kiss, so it feels too soon when he pulls away. Until he brings his lips to the shell of your ear for you to hear the full, rich appetite in his voice. “I’m not done with you yet, pretty girl.”

Your eyes pop open under the blindfold. He wants more? He can _keep going_? Just how strong was that E-bacta shot?

You’re disoriented, but your hazy figure makes it easy to yield when he nestles his hips deeper between the wedge of your thighs. “St-stars, Mando, you’re insatiable.”

He stops all movement immediately. “S-Sorry, are you—are you tired?” Concern displaces the blaze in his tone.

The apprehension in his words brings you to a breathless laugh. “No, but—”

Well, you _were_. But you’d be unconvincing even to yourself if you said you weren’t just as needy.

Your hands blindly reach up to find that his chest hovers above yours, propped up by the two palms planted on either side of your head. “Y-your shoulder. Shouldn’t you rest?”

And then he drops to his elbows, his chest dipping to meld against yours as he fixes a gentle kiss on your collarbone. “I don’t even feel it,” his lips are close enough that the sighs in his utterances tickle your neck.

“But I don’t think you should—”

“Quit.” And he’s awfully persuasive when he plunges his thumb into your mouth to shut you up. “Hush, sweet thing. I only want to hear you moaning.” His palm delves between your pelvis and his, showing you how ready he is when he holds his hard length at the breach of your folds. “Do you want that too?”

The pulsing that so quickly swallows you at the tease of it boasts of just how far you exist from declining. You nod, as your mouth is occupied when you suck on his finger to prove of your plea.

“Good.” His hand then moves to land on your waist, possessive as he digs into your skin to steady you there. "Relax, precious girl.” He eases into you. “Just relax.” The delicious stretch stifles you for a second. Then, your fever climbs just as tall as his and your hips push back to meet his forward jolt. "Keep being good for me, hm?" he grunts brokenly.

He lunges into you with an unacquainted vigour, prying your jaw open with a gasp that reels from your throat. His palm travels again into a hook under your thigh for him to throw your leg over his shoulder. He then huffs greedily at the depth he gains and the sounds he earns.

The sheer girth elicits whimpers from you as if you can’t handle it, but it thrills you that he doesn’t refrain from sheathing his entire cock with your walls. His hips drill into you while he drenches your ear in the visceral tremors of his pleased groans, a craving plaguing his every tenor.

But then a raw throbbing drives a soreness to even your furthest extremities when he starts thumbing your swollen clit above his heavying thrusts. Maker, you feel another ferocious high coming again. And it’s going to be thoroughly _aching_.

You’re frantic as you grapple onto the wrist of his offending hand. “T-too much, M-Mando,” your voice leaves you in fragments.

“You can handle it, can’t you, pretty girl?” He doesn’t interrupt his pushes and his strokes, and you only breathlessly mewl with a jaw that stutters at every meet of his unrelenting lunges. Your legs ache from his durable rhythm. “Come on, let me hear you,” he rasps, and the primal quality of it convinces you.

So euphoria slams down on you and inundates your senses like never before. A sore quality floods you, but you invite it.

His thrusts straying from a familiar tempo and leaning into a disorder tells you he’s veering right into his own unbridled climax. Husky grunts erupt from his chest while he pumps into you as if to chastise your pretty cunt. And your whines soar madly.

He empties into you, and it relaxes and parts your lips with a delirious grin when you feel the warmth in his thick load drenching your quivering walls. Blissful whispers of how you’ll never ever know a cock as good as his falls from the plump of your lips.

You’re both exhausted. You’ve both exhausted each other out. A drowsy haze is quickly diminishing any consciousness that still exists between the two of you. He drops his full weight into a rest on your chest, while your limbs are lazy in their wrap around his frame.

He’s muttering something about sleep, but you’re already beating him to it, surrendering to a slumber that builds upon the darkness already existing behind the blindfold. The last ghost of a thought that grazes your dying awareness is something along the lines of a tease about his behaviour tonight, and its relationship with the half dose you gave him. But you’re completely adrift before you’re able to refine it any further.

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted on tumblr (@djarsdin)


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